Naruto: The Altered Universe
by Kelvin king
Summary: This is the elemental nation. Where demonic and holy beast run her forest and the strong rule the weak. Without strength in this world a person will fade to obscurity. A destined meeting between a long lost grandfather and his grandson set the stage for a destiny that will shake the foundations of the elemental nations. Harem, alt universe, Chinese novel like setting, uzumakicest.
1. Chapter 1

**Naruto: The Altered Universe Saga.**

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own the naruto franchise or any other known media elements that may find their way into this story eventually.

 **Author's note:** hey guys this a new fic that ultimately follows the exact storyline of the canon naruto. Only there are some massive changes to the overall plot and structure of the naruto universe. Basically this is an alternate universe so there will be a lot of changes. This changes are mostly based on the xianxia and wuxia genre of web novels. Which means I am crossing the naruto universe with the widely used plots of Chinese novels. This fic draws inspiration from various Chinese novels like against the gods, I shall seal the heavens, martial world, demigods and semi devils etc. There's going to be a lot of changes, but I hope you guys will be patient and try to enjoy the story.

 **Chapter one: The dead last orphan (uzumaki naruto)**

The genin examination were coming closer, all variety of academy level ninja practitioners were preparing for this exams as it will determine if they have a future in the way of ninjutsu and martial arts.

In a hidden grove behind the ninja academy a young boy of twelve could be seen relentlessly pounding away at a tree stump. Now in an ordinary scenario a tree stump will cause some serious damage to any person who was stupid enough to punch it, and that was more true for the tree the young man was punching, this particular species of tree was called an iron wood tree. As its name suggest it has the basic appearance of a normal tree, but boast of a hardness that would put most other metal to shame.

But the young boy didn't care about the pain, even if the tree had split his skin to the bone. This young mans name is naruto. At first glance a person would always notice his unremarkable cloths as they showed he was a kid living in abject poverty, on the other hand when they look at his facial features, they will be met, with a skin so tanned it only needed a little step to jump from bronze to brown, spiky golden locks adorned his head, on his face whisker like tribal marks were show as the ran from left to right marring his handsome features with their scar like look. And his eyes, they were the deepest blue that could rival the blues of the sky and seas. But currently those eyes were endlessly dripping tear drops, as young naruto gritted his teeth to hold back both the physical pain of meshing his skinless and naked knuckles against the rough bark of the iron wood tree and the pain of loneliness and poverty.

Naruto has always been alone from his earliest memories, apparently he was among the thousands of children who became orphans twelve years ago when the god class demonic beast, the kyubi no kitsune, attacked and leveled more than half of the military capital of the fire empire. That was a dark day for Konoha city, as it suffered such great losses, if not for the intervention of an unknown ninja, who had the ability to instantly teleport nothing would have been left of the city. On that day the teleporting ninja along with a red haired woman subdued and defeated the beast before succumbing to their wounds and dying. Based on the personal effects found on their body, they were identified as Minato namikaze and kushina uzumaki, husband and wife and at the time the current clan heads of the Uzumaki family. A family that was stationed three days away from the city in the small village town of wave. Since then those two have been regarded as the heroes of Konoha, even if they were strangers, they fought and gave their life for the city, and for that the city honored them.

Currently young naruto was practicing and hopping he would be able to get to the final stage of the body tempering realm. On this elemental continent the strong reign supreme, and their strength are all decided into various realms, from when the first start training as youngsters, they will have to pass the body tempering realm, which consists of three stages.

The organ strengthening stage, the bone strengthening stage, and the mind strengthening stage. After that comes the genin realm which also comprises of three levels, the initial genin stage, the middle genin stage, and the advanced genin stage. Ninjas and martial artist are a whole lot stronger than people still at the body tempering stage, while the body tempering stage focuses on strengthening the body for ones foray into the ninja and martial arts world, the people at the genin realm would have already created their chakra pathways, which would allow them to be able to add low level chakra techniques to their repertoire. Not to mention people at the genin realm get a boost of power as their body evolves in such a way that let's them draw in chakra from the heavens and earth for battle, it makes them stronger than the average people. But of course there were still higher levels of martial and ninja prowess.

The next realm is the jonin realm, this realm has six stages. The initial jonin stage, the steady jonin stage, the initial middle stage, the middle jonin stage, the initial peak stage, and the peak jonin stage. Fighters at this stage were a hundred times stronger than the genin realm fighters. At this point in time, they will create a chakra core within their body, which will allow them to store either yin chakra, for females and yang chakra for males. At this point they will only be able to use particular skills suitable to their particular chakra type. But with the coming of the specialized chakra, their bodies become stronger and faster, now that they have a chakra core within their body, they can use high level techniques and don't have to consciously draw chakra energy for the heavens and earth, this time they can only do it once in a will to fill their chakra core through meditation before battle. People at this stage possessed the ability to change the scene of an environment due to the pure destructive force in their body, they are also only able to use specific elements, fire, earth, and wind for males, also know as the yang jonins. Then water, lightening, and wind for the females. Wind is the only element that both side can properly use, for those of them who are lucky to have an affinity for it. No one knows why air was the exception to the yin and yang rule, but maybe due to that, the number of wind natured ninjas are extremely scarce as people who are compatible with the wind nature chakra are very rare.

The next realm is the kage realm. This is the level of the various truly powerful leaders around the continent, to get to this level no small amount of sweat and blood had to be shed, at this stage the ninjas are at the top of all others because a kage realm practitioner has the power to completely bring down and raise mountains with just a flick of their fingers. Kages were at the pinnacle of what an extraordinary and talented ninja can reach. At this level the chakra core within their body will become a chakra sea, giving kages the abilities to make their own chakra, and this chakra was a able to take little aspects of the opposing yin or yang chakra allowing them to use techniques that was previously restricted to them due to being either male or female. But after this is the final realm.

The sage realm is the most profound and most unattainable level. People at this level were sometimes referred to as Gods, they were rare, and the people with that level on the elemental continent could be counted with one hand. At this stage the ninjas and martial practioners attain a level of being one with nature, due to that their body automatically absorbs both yin and yang energy, making them so powerful they only need to sneeze to wipe out an empire.

But to to young naruto attaining the sage realm was currently a pipe dream, without cultivation and training resources, he doubted if he would ever be able to leave the body tempering realm, but naruto boasted of one thing most people did not have, his unyielding determination to be the best and achieve his dream, to be a hero just like Minato Namikaze and his wife, to be respected and loved by the people around him, to achieve the pinnacle of true power. All this were lofty dreams, even for a twelve year old boy, some people might even call him crazy and delusional for having such ambitions, but Naruto was a stubborn kid, he refused to let the opinions of people who were afraid to try and were comfortable with their own mediocrity to heart.

He rested his back against the tree, which looked completely worn, as the constant years of abuse from naruto had slowly chipped away at its bark. Dried flakes of blood and dead skin could be seen clinging to tree, such a sight was really bone chilling and awe inspiring, but right now Naruto did not care how impressive and dedicated his training looked like. The truth of the matter was that there were others more talented and stronger than him, and of this other guys some of them could punch through the iron wood tree, without a single hint of a bruise on them. But this guys had access to stuff he did not, on an equal playing field Naruto was sure he was a thousand times more talented than all the so called geniuses of his academy class.

Naruto bit back a hiss as he applied then paste of a common root herb on his injuries. While this herb was abundant around and was well known for it rapid healing qualities, it was sub-par at best, and would take at least two weeks of constant care to heal his injured knuckles completely.

Naruto did not spend much time in the grove as he made his way back to the academy, half way there however he changed his route, instead choosing to head towards the onsen and public bath area. While school was good and fine, naruto felt that he had soak in natural hot springs of Konoha to sooth his aching muscles and achieve a good degree of relaxation. Besides whatever it is they were going to teach today he was sure Kiba will tell him about it later.

In the whole of Konoha city, Naruto's only friend was the clan heir of the Inuzuka clan, one Kiba Inuzuka. A rather rambunctious and eccentric fellow whose character could sometimes be called arrogant. The Inuzuka clan are a specialized clan of ninja cultivators who had the bloodline of the eternal wolf God. This has enabled them to have contracts with fearsome demonic wolf dogs that were called ninken. Once every child reached the accepted age of maturity, they are allowed to summon and make a contract with their own ninken, through the use of a clan treasure left behind for their clan by the wolf God. Recently Kiba had succeeded in summon a class seven white wolf dog. According to Kiba, his ninken belonged to a species of ninken called soul eaters. They are the only type of ninken with the ability to grow beyond their class. As for class of demonic beast, on the elemental continent all beast are divided into classes, with the exception of domestic beast and everyday rodents. On the continent, the landscape is riddled with demonic and holy beast of all classes. Their power levels are measured by the amount of strength they have. For example a class one beast is the weakest, while a class thirteen is the strongest. Holy beast are rarer than demonic beast, and it is almost impossible to tame a demonic beast that has lived as much as one month in the wild. As for how Naruto knew this, he naturally learned most of this from Kiba. Even though Kiba was a handful only Naruto had the capacity to keep up with him. Which of course is wrong, since it's the other way around, only Kiba can keep up with Naruto. Naruto was a natural born prankster and the adventures he and Kiba have had, along with their somewhat reluctant second best friend Shikamaru Nara had become legendary in Konoha city. It was due to the friendship he had with these two clan heirs, that Naruto could successfully reach the second stage of the body tempering realm. But there was only so much that they could do considering they had to cut short their own cultivation materials to help Naruto. And it was something they could not do all the time, they had the expectations of their clans riding on their shoulders which limited them in how much they could help their best friend. But Naruto was eternally great full to the two of them, so he made a promise to always stand by their sides no matter what happens.

As Naruto walked down the streets and alleyways of Konoha city, he was subjected to the occasional looks of pity from the residents, in their mind they believed this young man was only wasting his time in trying to be a ninja or martial cultivator, since he did not have the capacity to sponsor his training. They all knew he was orphaned during the attack twelve years ago. Among the hundreds of children that day Naruto was well known, and not just because of his legendary pranking phases, but because they all knew the kid had a good heart and was a hard worker, however all they could do was look at him with looks filled with pity, the worst kind of look Naruto hated.

In his opinion it was better for a person to hate him than pity him, it made him feel weak and incapable. It was why he started pranking people, but it seemed the more he acted the more pity he got.

Due to that Naruto saw most if not almost all of the people who lived I. Konoha city as hypocrites. They will all look at him like some wounded animal, but non of them will ever raise a hand to help him any way, only choosing to whisper behind his back of how unfortunate his life is.

At this point in time, under the harsh glare of the noon sun, Naruto reached the restrict where the onsen and hot springs were located, his body shuddered in anticipation at the relaxation he was bound to experience in just a few short minutes. However his musings were cut short by a commotion in front of him. A middle aged man was heading straight for him, running at his top speed, while quite a distance behind him was a huge crowd of women with a variety of crude weapons like clubs and extremely huge sticks.

Naruto chuckled quietly to himself, as he deduced the man was a pervert who was caught peeping. 'sucks to be you old man' naruto thought to himself as the man approached him. The man took a sharp turn into an alley right beside naruto and jumped into a trash can beside a wall. But just before he jumped he turned to Naruto with a frightened look on his face and mouthed "help" silently while he proceeded to hide from the approaching lynch mob of women.

As he weighed the pros and cons of helping the old pervert, the women caught up to him.

" hey young man have you seen a white haired old man running around here a few minutes ago" a classy looking brunet who looked out of sorts with the giant metal pole in his hands asked him.

Naruto involuntarily took a big gulp of air at the sight of the pole before automatically answering.

" well yes I did see a man, however I saw him summon a demonic beast and fly away."

The women looked extremely suspicious of his answer, but considering he was just a little innocent looking boy, and his rather sincere answer had them believing he was telling the truth. As for the ninja experts among the women they did not notice any fluctuations of chakra, so they could safely say he was not someone else in disguise. Choosing not to linger any longer they all turned and headed back to the bath house, apparently Naruto's answer and rather innocent expression had killed the raging fire of righteous females fury in their hearts so they lost interest in chasing and tracking down that stupid pervert and destroying all chance of him procreating or ever having an erection again.

Seeing that the coast was clear Naruto walked over to the trash can and gave it a swift kick, disregarding the startled yell coming from it, he yelled out.

" You can come out now, old man. Your would be murderers have already left."

The lid of the trash can lifted up a little, as the perverted old man took a look around. Seeing that the coast really was clear and there was not a single speck of female body in the immediate vicinity, he quickly jumped out and clung to naruto's leg.

" Thank you, thank you so much young man. You must be my guardian angel, oh thank for saving me from an early grave."

Naruto was rattled by freakish display of gratitude from the old man, considering he was slobbering saliva all over Naruto's trousers as he kissed them in thanks.

" Oi old man, get off me, do you think I did this for free. You must give me a reward."

The old man stopped kissing Naruto 'legs and stood up.

"Well young man, name your price. Anything you want if its within my power I will grant it."

" well since you said so, you better not go back on your word."

" I won't, now tell me what you want, those beauties won't admire themselves."

For a moment Naruto wondered if the man in front of him was either crazy or a masochist. What kind of person will see a river of fire breathing snake and then jump headfirst into it. It made him skeptical about the request he was about to make. The man in front of him was well known, even Naruto knew who he was and to have such a person indebted to him was a dream come true, which means as the saying goes he had to milk this opportunity for what is worth. After all its not everyday you save a sage realm ninja like Jiraiya of the sannin from being lynched.

" OK then old man, what I want is for you to train me until I get to the jonin realm, and take care of all my training expenses and whatnot. And also I have to reach the genin realm in four months, before the genin examination."

Jiraiya was dumbfounded, this kid was an extortionist, he was even a hundred times skilled than tsunade who could make you give up your life savings with just one word. But he was way different than tsunade. The big chested bimbo and extortionist ways can be escaped if you can trap her with her own words, but this kid covered all his bases perfectly.

For a ninja like Jiraiya who had already achieved the peak level of what any martial artist can obtain on the elemental nations, the only thing he had apart from his illustrious reputation was his word. Many people would kill for an opportunity to be the one he owed a favor to, because just one word from his mouth and he could change a person's life forever. That was how respected and feared he was, so it came as a surprise to him that for the first time in so many years, he had been beating in a game of wits, in fact he did not even know that there was a game going on. What's worse is that his opponent was just a nine year old kid. This was embarrassing, but he had to keep his word and protect his reputation. He had not had a student since Nagato and his siblings, so maybe it was time for a change, he had been really bored lately.

" Well kid count yourself lucky, cause now you are the student apprentice of the dangerously handsome, tyrannically powerful, magically loving, and hunkishly brave….."

" I know who you are old man what's with the long intro?"

Jiraiya had his right eye twitching madly, as he fought the urge to bend this kid over his knees and give him a spanking he will never forget. ' how dare he interrupt my glorious introduction, how rude and uncivilized'. If Naruto could hear Jiraiya thinking he would have called the old man a miserable hypocrite, considering it was Jiraiya who has been acting uncivilized throughout the duration of their meeting each other.

" Fine kid, who are you, what's your name, where are you from, and how old are you."

Jiraiya did not put much thought in why he just suddenly agreed to take this boy on as an apprentice, even if the kid covered all his escape routes, jiraiya was sure, he would have been able to find a way to get out of the deal or at least release the pressure and take advantage of the kid. But it was like one of those dejavu moments. It was strange but Jiraiya was not a sage for nothing, with his connection to nature he also had connection to the universe and he had learnt to listen whenever the universe was talking. And right now it was screaming pretty loud, besides beneath all those dirt and grime on the face of the kid, was a boy that would be considered cute and handsome. And where there is a cute and handsome boy, there will be ladies of the finest quality 'hehehe'

" well I am nobody at the moment, my name is uzumaki naruto, I don't know where am from, because I have been in Konoha all my life, and I am twelve years old."

Jiraiya was silent for a while then he asked.

" your twelve years old?"

Naruto replied with a nod.

" any relation to the uzumaki clan?"

" am not sure."

To Jiraiya naruto looked really pitiful, a twelve year old that looked like a nine year old, must be someone who is severely emancipated, and he had a family name that belongs to one of the most elite clan in the history of the elemental continent. And jiraiya knew for a fact that there has never been an uzumaki with blond hair. Except of course the husband of the former clan head, which of course was the Hero of Konoha and died together with his pregnant wife during the attack of the god class nine tailed demon fox twelve years ago. Unbidden a scene from a few years ago came to him, when he discovered his adopted son was going to be a father.

 **FLASHBACK**

" Hey jiraiya sensei."

" hmm Minato, what's the matter? Is your wife making life difficult for you, do you want me to arrange a concubine for you. You know its not against the law to have more than one wife ehh." The lecherous grin on Jiraiya face, had the then twenty year old Minato shivering in freight and revulsion. His wife was right behind him, and he knew how much of a rage monster Kushina could be, especially when it comes to jiraiya and his perverted tendencies. So he had to speak fast a diffuse this situation before it escalated and Jiraiya ends up getting beaten to within an inch of his life.

" Jiraiya we have decided to name our son after the character in your first book. His name will be Naruto uzumaki Namikaze.

Jiraiya was speechless and overwhelmed with emotions, the name Naruto actually belonged to his father, and the naming of his first literary protagonist with that name was not done on a whim. This name was special to him, and the fact that Minato had chosen that name, made him happy and extremely emotional. In that aspect it did not take long for him to jump on Minato and begin to bawl like a baby all the while he kept on saying how Minato was the best thing that happened to him, and how illustrious his marriage will be, and that they should hurry up and make more babies so that they can name them after the other characters from his icha icha series. The only answer to that was a punch from Kushina, with Minato shaking his head in amusement, it was just another happy day in the life of Jiraiya.

 **FLASHBACK END**

" oi, old man, are you there."

Naruto had taken to waving his hands in front of jiraiya, trying to get his attention. Naruto had no idea what sort of meltdown and guilt jiraiya was currently going through.

Jiraiya had his mind running a mile a minute, his heart beat was so loud that he was sure anyone close by could hear it. Jiraiya had given up on some of the most important principles of life since the death of Minato. He had lost his ability to have faith and believe in something bigger than himself, not even his devotion to Konoha city could restore his broken heart. But for the first time in twelve years, jiraiya dared to hope, he dare to believe there was such a thing as destiny and fate. Standing in front of him was his missing Godson/grandson, such a meeting could not be called a coincidence. Some higher power was trying to fuck with both their lives 'shit'.

Naruto had lived alone all this years, and was in such a pitiful state, but what shocked him the most was how would the uzumaki clan not have heard about a member living in Konoha. Even the idiots here should be able to make the connection when ever Naruto introduced himself with the uzumaki name. The spiky locks of yellow gold blond hair was more than enough to seal the deal, because that was exactly how Minato looked. For God sake there was a giant statue of Minato in the center of the city, and he his head was sculpted on the giant cliff wall where the former leaders of Konoha were immortalized.

" Am OK kid, you should prepare yourself, being my student is not going to be easy. Are you prepared?"

Naruto could hardly control his excitement, he did not know what he had done to come across such a good fortune as meeting and becoming the student of one of the ultimate existence in the whole elemental continent.

With tears in his eyes Naruto could only nod his head and rushed forward to hug Jiraiya. For Naruto this was a way to showcase his happiness and thank jiraiya. But for Jiraiya this scene was heartbreaking, after twelve years he was finally allowed the chance to hold his grandson, to feel the legacy that Minato and kushina left behind. His own tears were fallen now, and it took a lot of strength to not completely break down on the streets. He quickly cleaned his eyes as Naruto let go of him and took a step back.

" Say old man, what are we going to do first, will you show me some yang ninjutsu, or a powerful martial art, Oooo tell me!, tell me!, tell me!"

"Kid calm down first, but you are right. Am about to teach you an ancient art that will make you look good and intimidating."

"ohhh, what is it, please tell me."

At this point Jiraiya paused, trying to inject a bit of suspense into the atmosphere, and from the way Naruto was shuffling around it was working.

" Naruto we are going…shopping."

Poor Naruto, it seemed like Jiraiya and his sudden prank had forced the young man to have his brain rebooted after getting an answer that did not meet his expectations. All he could answer with was

" eh, what did you say?"

Suffice to say, that now this two long lost family had found themselves, the elemental nations seems to have become a smaller place, because quite honestly who could handle the team up of a prankster king from hell and a uber powerful super pervert. The answer is no one. And as for the higher power which seemed to have enjoyed having Naruto grow up without familial love, right now it was safe to say there was a shudder going through their spines.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

OK guys you know the drill read and review, as for some other things in this story well it's a harem. And currently it already has Hinata, Shizuoka, and Karin as a part of it. There's only room for one more so send me your suggestions. Yes also Hinata, Neji, Ten-Ten, Lee and a few others would be at least two years older than naruto. I know in the anime naruto is a few months older than Hinata but this is crucial to my story. Also there is no central villain yet. In this fic everyone is a selfish bastard who only care about themselves. But some of the anime villains will still retain their characters and roles. So not too many things have changed. Bye guys.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO:**

 **A WHITE HAIRED MONSTER( MAN AND BEAST)**

After their sudden shopping spree yesterday, both Naruto and jiraiya had bonded. Of course shopping alone would not have been enough for that to happen considering Naruto was a very guarded young man. But his capacity for trust and seeing the best in people was really inspiring. Even though Jiraiya felt such a way of thinking was naïve d childish. In this world that they lived nobody can afford to be nice.

Jiraiya had gotten a whole set of cloths for him, combat cloths, casual cloths and some cloths for formal occasions. Jiraiya was ninety eight point four percent sure Naruto was the son of Minato and Kushina, so he had to prepare the young boy for his foray into the political world of the elemental nations, and that would be a war even more ruthless than one on a battlefield.

" Naruto will you stop fidgeting and concentrate. If you spill one drop of my precious tea you are going to be running laps around this city until you are almost dead. And by my estimation in accordance to your current strength it will take you at least fourteen days to walk round the whole city, at top speed."

The only answer he received to that was curses and swearing from Naruto, who was currently undergoing a torturous training.

Jiraiya had placed and extremely round and smooth rock on the ground of the training field, then he place a wooden board on It, next he had Naruto adopt the horse stance, making him position himself in a half squat position, while reading a book on chakra circulation. Of course for a person at the second stage of the body tempering realm, Naruto could handle such a training at least for a few hours. What he did not expect was the almost four hundred page book, and the teacup on his head. Which of course has a seal array that had the tea in it maintain a boiling temperature since the beginning of this training session. It has been eight hours and Naruto was rapidly approaching his limits.

Jiraiya was very much impressed Naruto had the will power to last this long, this training was an attempt for Naruto to have a split focus, in a bid to improve his mental energy. The chakra in ones body is controlled by mental energy. A person with a high capacity of mental energy can grow faster than a normal ninja or martial artist, because the more mental energy you have, the more ability you have to be able to control the chakra flow through your bodies meridians, pressure points, and chakra pathways. When that is successful a person will be able to jump to the next stage with a more solid foundation. Of course only people with high mental energy can foray into other martial occupations like seal masters, alchemist, beast tamers and high level blacksmiths and forgers.

A huge crash resounded around the almost empty field, Naruto had fallen down, but he had seemed to have forgotten the extremely hot cup of tea on his head, causing him to be in a funny and precarious position as he ran around the training field yelling in pain.

" Naruto come here, would you?"

" What do you want you monster?"

" Hey brat you better give me some respect, I am your master you know. Everything I do, I do for your own good."

Jiraiya had taking a sage like tone when he started speaking like this, even going as far as stroking his goatee, in an effort to seem more wise and sage like. Naruto was not impressed, his incredibly tanned skin was red from having hot tea doused on him so he had no tolerance for jiraiya and his games right now. Seeing as his little acting was having little to he effect on Naruto, jiraiya sighed in thought 'sometimes that kid could really let loose and seem like a monster, other times he seems like a saint and is so serious its cute and intimidating at the same time. Ha what a weird kid'.

" Alright Naruto I want to give your training schedule for the next one month, if you successfully master this training regime, I will up the difficulty and teach a taijutsu martial art. First up this mental training that I have given to you, you must practice it every morning for eight hours, you must begin from 4 am to twelve noon, with no hope for breakfast or any other snack. At noon you have a two hour break, then for another two hours you will practice a breathing technique to help your chakra circulation and strengthen your organs. After that you have the rest of the day to yourself, but your dinner must not go past seven am, if it does then go to bed hungry. And you must not be up past nine pm. You will need your rest. If you successfully master this training exercise before I return in a month, then I will reward you greatly."

When Naruto had been listening to what he now considered a list of barbaric chores he had gone extremely pale, he knew none of the other academy students trained like this. Is this old man trying to kill him or something. But of course the enticement of a reward and a fighting technique was ample motivation, especially since Naruto had good reasons to get stronger really fast. But of course the young man did not know the mental exercise he was given was the same as the one used by kages realm ninjas and martial artist to break into the sage realm, it was an extremely watered down version, but still it was a top training method.

" Say jiraiya sensei, are you leaving already?"

The pure agony in his tone was enough to almost make jiraiya cry. One day, just one day. That was enough for people like jiraiya and Naruto to make bonds that will last ten thousand lifetimes. And this two had bonded so well it was almost as if they had know each other for years. Jiraiya was not the first adult to show interest in him, or gave him pointers in training. Naruto was not so stupid as to believe that if jiraiya did not want to train him, he could have convinced him. But jiraiya was genuinely doing this for naruto from his heart. For Naruto if you have lived on the streets as long as he had, you would be able to tell the expressions on a persons face.

And for as long as Naruto had know jiraiya ( of course it has only been two days) jiraiya had at least been open and honest with him.

" Naruto there's no need to be worried or sad, I have some things I need to take care of, outside the village. So I will be back in a month tops. If I am not back by then, I will send a message to you. And find a way to make it up to you."

With his piece said jiraiya did not linger on to much, he gave naruto an affectionate tap on the head and disappeared with a gust of wind.

For a moment, Naruto was washed in thick waves of loneliness and hurt, but it was quickly swept away as his exhaustion caught up with him. Before their training session began today, jiraiya already had the foresight of naruto being hungry after their training so he prepared a hearty and healthy lunch for him. Inside the basket to food was kept, Naruto found a note from jiraiya telling him to eat healthy and ten gold coins. Naruto's eyes almost flew out of his head, the average income of a middle class family for a year was at least three gold coins. The currency were arranged in such away it was always noted that gold was the highest monetary figure available. One hundred bronze coins equal to a silver coin, and one hundred silver coins equals one gold coin. The highest amount of money naruto ever earned was five silver coins, and that was enough to get him a two week stash of ramen with enough change for anything else he needed. But before he could celebrate his new found fortune he noticed another note from jiraiya, outlining an extensive and expensive diet chart that he had to follow or he would face the consequences of him losing jiraiya as a teacher.

Putting aside the notes, Naruto focused himself on the delicacies in front of him, for the whole twelve years of his life, this was the first time he had ever eaten a meal as rich as this, so while he was rushing and eating like a savage, he also took his time to enjoy their taste and feeling of satisfaction and euphoria they gave him as the slid down his throat and into his stomach.

And hour later Naruto was lying down, staring at the clouds floating in the sky, quite happy with himself. He a while he fantasized of how his life will turn out in the future with Jiraiya as his teacher.

As he contemplated his otherwise good luck a painful y and mournful yowl rent through the air, scaring a boat load of birds and rodents. The fear in the air was not limited to the animals alone, even naruto felt as if he had been doused with a bucket of cold water. The field were he was training was bordered by the forest of death, though the monsters in the forest of death hardly ever leave the protection of its huge trees and dense foliage, it was not unheard of for one of them to have found their way out. And during such times, there was almost always a couple of dead people around due to the amount of damage that will be found around.

The sound came again, and this Naruto was able to notice that it was more a cry of pain. He concluded that the beast was either caught in a trap of dying. Either way it had nothing to do with him so it will be better if he found his square root and vamoose from this training field.

He did not want to die when he had just struck a boatload of good luck, so in that respect, he had to get the hell out of here. As he was approaching the tree lines that will lead him to the eastern gate of the city, he heard the cry again. It was almost as if whatever it was calling for him. 'don't do this naruto, just get the hell out of here' of course he did not listen to himself. Like a puppet being drawn by the strings of the puppeteer he walked steadily toward the sound.

This time of the year the forest had a coolness that was a far cry to the spring heat that had suddenly put a lot of female ninjas and martial artists on high alert. Usually the only time it was ever this hot, was during the summer, but due to the intensity of the heat some of the beast that prefer a warmer temperature will leave the areas deep in the forest to the outskirts to enjoy the heat.

With his heart beating so loud, he could hear it outside of his body, naruto made his way around dense foliage's and vegetation. His footsteps all made the steady crack…ka….ka sounds as he stepped on various dried twigs and sticks on the forest floor. The forest itself had a somewhat sinister beauty to itself, and it naturally had an intimidating and nefarious aura. If Naruto was not scared then he probably would have been considered abnormal. As he cleared a particular huge leaf from his face, he found himself in a little clearing, but the sight he saw was something that shook him to his core, he could not help but exclaimed out loud.

"O my Gods!"

Lying in front of him was a beast alright, but Naruto could not tell whether it was a demonic and holy beast. The creature in front of him was almost three meters tall, just a little under eight feet tall. But it was lying on the ground so Naruto could only speculate its real height. It looked like a huge white lion, but this lion had scales allover its body, its head was more like a reptile than a lion when Naruto looked closely at it. Then the next thing worth mentioning were its scaled leather wings that looked to be twice the size of the beast that was lying down at about eight meters if it was unfurled completely from left to right.

Apart from its impressive physique, what really shocked Naruto was the state and scene he found the beast in. It was wounded heavily and by the looks of things it did not have much time to leave. Strewn around the beast were the corpses of other demonic beast, some even naruto could recognize. Beast like the ironbark wood wolf, or the corrosive fire aardvark. They were not rated high in the beast charts, making them probably a level three or four class beast. Which puts their strength at the late genin realm or early jonin realm. In the elemental class there is a special realm of cultivation that was called the chunin realm. It was between the genin realm and the jonin realm. Almost everyone would skip the requirements for that realm, jumping directly to jonin instead. The chunin realm only had two stages, the initial and peak stage. Chunin Ninjas or martial artist have the ability to condense a chakra core on their forehead, giving them above average mental abilities. This people are the one who usually ends up as seal masters and beast tamers and also forgers and blacksmiths. But the downside to this realm was that they can never progress from it, only improve on their mental power.

On the floor among the corpses was grey ringed serpent. One of the few beast with the ability to successfully be in the chunin realm. Naruto could only imagine what kind of damage that beast had caused, since it most definitely utilized mental attacks and poisons against its opponent.

The huge scaled lion had not noticed Naruto and was still making mournful sounds to the forest. Naruto knew it was only a matter of time before the sounds of its dying cries attracted a more dangerous beast. So Naruto set to work. Demonic beast are able to condense demonic cores while holy beast condensed holy hearts and spirit bones. This items in the body of their respected beast was very powerful and was the source of their powers and special attacks. Theses things are formed when the beast have learnt how to draw and circulate chakra in their body. Which gives them an advantage over all genin realm practioners as they have no way to store chakra, unlike the beast with their hearts and cores. Apart from being extremely valuable, the heart, core and spirit bones of both holy and demonic beast had pure beast energy in them, which when absorbed can help people train and ascend to the next realm. Right now Naruto was in a mine field, filled with all these resources. Even with his life on the line, the temptation of how much he could gain won out over common sense, which was currently screaming that Naruto should get the flying fuck out of there.

Keeping his distance from the beast, Naruto went around harvesting the cores from the numerous beast in the clearing and putting them into the basket jiraiya had kept his lunch in. During his hurried slicing and dicing, he did not notice he had moved extremely close to the huge beast, but a sight of pure brutality wrenched his heart to pieces.

On the side of the beast were six little cubs, about the size and length of naruto's finger tips to elbows, they looked exactly like the huge beast except they had no scales yet and their wings was just a stub on their back. What was really painful was that they were all dead. Seeing this gave Naruto the explanation he needed for why the beast was in this situation. When some beast are just new born, their energy is extremely pure and have a perfect balance of yin and yang. Anyone who ate those beast, human and beast alike will find their capabilities greatly enhanced, giving them a stronger physique and a more powerful and potent chakra. These beast just gave birth, the enticement of power was enough to drive all the other beast into a frenzy and ceaselessly attack in an effort to eat her children.

She fought valiantly, but in the end she lost and all her children were dead. Throwing caution to the wind Naruto approached the head of the beast with tears in his eyes. Without any hesitation he hugged the beast and started bawling like a child, well a younger child than him that is.

" Waaaaa, am so sorry. I wish jiraiya sensei and I came and noticed you earlier, then it would not be to late….HIC…. Am so sorry."

First of these was probably the most stupid thing Naruto could ever do considering where he currently found himself and the danger he was in.

But Naruto was moved, no matter how hard his heart had to be due to growing up on the streets, he still had his innocence. Suddenly. The beast raised its wings. And right under it was another one of her cubs.

This cub was still alive, but was gravely injured, its little body was breathing rapidly as a steady stream of blood seemed to flow from its body. With great effort the mother beast raised herself to her full height, and succeeded in scaring the living daylight out of Naruto. But the mother beast did something peculiar, she used her injured paw to lift her injured baby and deposited her baby in Naruto's arms.

For Naruto this was shocking, he could only hold on to the baby beast dumbly while he looked at the mother in fright. The beast inclined her head in a gesture that said go.

" you…you want me to take it away?"

The beast responded with a nod of Its huge head, even if Naruto did not want to take this cub, he knew he did not have much of a choice. With the mother in front of him, if he refused he was sure to forfeit his life.

"Okay, I promise to always look after your baby, no matter what happens. I will keep my promise don't worry, because that is my Ninja way."

It was quite clear the extremely huge beast was amused, even if it was at the threshold of death, the pure innocence and naivety smothered in a huge dash of sincerity that Naruto displayed had lifted her spirits. But then she did something else that will scare Naruto for a very long time of his life, she drove her huge paws into her body. With the sound of cracking ribs and torn tissue she removed her beast core. It was the size of a grown mans fist, at least three times larger than a core of usual size. She placed the core in a basket then pointed at her baby and then her mouth. Naruto was well aware what this meant, she wanted him to feed her core to her child when it was old enough, since the cub in Naruto's hands was not even yet a week old. Naruto nodded in understanding, and then she dove her paws into her body again, this time she brought out her at least two huge rib bones and placed on the core while making the same gesture as before. Naruto was thoroughly scared, how could someone or something put their selves through this kind of pain as too literally rip the source of their power and their bones out of their body. To twelve year old Naruto this was unreal and terribly and fascinatingly intimidating.

A huge roar sounded from within the forest, and by the sound of it what ever monster that was, it was very dangerous and rapidly approaching. The mother beast inclined her head, in a way that told Naruto to run away, then she gave a Titanic roar of her own, and jumped back into the dense forest in an effort to stall the incoming danger and buy time for her cub and Naruto to escape. Naruto was no fool, he knew an opportunity when he saw one, with a bow of gratitude towards the direction where the mother beast ran to, Naruto rapidly deposited the bones and core into his picnic basket, and took of at great speed, running with the cub in hand and a basket of extremely precious materials. Soon enough he could hear the sound of a heavy battle between beast, with the snarling and growling, Naruto increased the speed of his escape. Soon enough the battle ended, but Naruto knew for sure the mother beast had lost, pushing himself to the limit of his body, he successfully made it out of the forest, running at full speed to the Konoha city. Roars of rage could be heard behind him, but Naruto could not care for that, his priority Now, was to get this cub to the Inuzuka clan, after all they were vets and probably the only person that could save it.

Morning came rather quick, and Naruto's aching body was still covered in blood from the situation that happened the previous day. He was sleeping on a chair in the waiting room of the Inuzuka veterinary hospital, and beside him was both Shikamaru and Kiba. His best friends had both chose to stay with him all night, until all three boys fell asleep on a chair. To most people this would have been an incredibly heart touching scene if not for the fact that naruto was covered in blood.

Approaching footsteps awoke the three friends as they hastily and sleepily got up. Kiba was the first to speak since he was more familiar with the approaching person.

" Big sis, is the dralion OK?"

Naruto turned with a confused gaze and asked Kiba.

" The what now?"

"Seriously Naruto, you bring in a beast and you don't know what it is and where its from, How can you become a ninja with such poor observation skills and lack of knowledge"

" I know where its from sister Hana, I just don't know what it is."

In front of Hana Naruto was sometimes nothing more than a child. Ever since young she had doted on all three of them, giving no distinction between Naruto, Shikamaru and her brother Kiba. In her mind they were all her brothers and she loved them very much. And so all three boys always tended to act like children whenever she was around, even the always taciturn and lazy Shikamaru had taken advantage of her love for them more times than could be counted.

" Naruto, the dralion has been stabilized, but if we don't bind the dralion to a owner am afraid it will die. So am here to ask if you will want to sell the Dralion or if you want to bind it to yourself. But Naruto, this Dralion is a rank 6 beast and just like our soul eaters, it has the ability to grow at a steady pace. In the right conditions am sure in about twenty or thirty years, it will be a rank 10 beast with the power of a kage. But Naruto I want you to think about what's best for the beast, its not just a holy beast but also a demonic beast. Its one of the rare hybrids that are born from the blood line of a holy dragon and a demonic lion, so it will need a lot of care. Even if we choose to help you Naruto, we won't be able to spare the expenses to take care of a beast such as this. But if you sell it, you would be able to get at least five hundred thousand gold for it. Such amount of money will keep you and the next five generations of your family set for life. So what do you say?"

Naruto was shocked, he could feel the gazes of both Kiba and Shikamaru on him and he could tell with a glance he knew what they were thinking. They wanted him to sell the beast, this way he never had to be hungry again and even be able to help train himself to a higher level now that he had the funds for training materials. To be honest Naruto himself was also tempted, but he had a master now and he made a promise to Dralion's mother, that he would take care of her child no matter what. He would never go back on his word, that was his ninja way.

" Aunty Hana I know you want me to sell it, so that I can live a comfortable life, but I can't. I made a promise to its mother that I will look after it no matter what. I can't break my promise. So I think I will have the binding seal ceremony. Don't worry we will be fine.

Hana knew she lost this argument the moment Naruto mentioned a promise. They all knew that even though Naruto was only twelve soon to be thirteen, he was a man of principle and he had his own laws with which he governed his life. And one of the prime laws was that no matter what he will never, ever go back on his word. Even Kiba and Shikamaru gave a resigned sigh, because they knew Naruto will not give the dralion up.

" Alright Naruto come with me, the sooner we get the binding seal and connect your souls and body the sooner we will have the extra energy to perfectly heal and save its life. Besides if the beast grows up more it will be able to protect you from many dangers Naruto.

With her piece said she led the way down a long and clean corridor of white tiles and doors, at the end the went through a door to a room that was not much different from the corridor of outside.

The dralion was lying on a counter still unconscious, while Kiba and Shikamaru admired the baby beast that will most definitely grow up to be a tall as a building killer, Naruto went to its side and waited as Hana rummaged through some cabinets in the room.

She came back with a sealing scroll in hand, that looked really bland on the outside. She unfurled the scroll and the sight of an extremely complex sealing array was presented to Naruto. It was really fascinating since it quite looked like a pretty picture of triangular and star like symbols all interwoven and interlocked together in a very clean and meticulous manner. From where he stood Naruto could feel the wave of thick chakra and spiritual energy that wafted from the scroll, even if he had not reached the point where he could use chakra, he could still sense and feel it coming from the scroll.

"Naruto place your hands on his head, the dralion is male so this should be a little easier. Also he is a baby, even his eyes has not been opened yet, which means it would be easier for to make an impression and connection when it wakes up and sees you first. But this procedure will hurt, this binding will fuse both your soul energy and physical energy together. It will also create a spirit resonance so that you can understand and communicate with it. But Naruto let me warn you, this will be painful, more painful than anything you ever felt, since you are joining your soul with a beast. And it will be a lot more worse considering this is a hybrid rare beast of both the spiritual natures of demonic and holy. If you don't see this through to the end, you might end up destroying both your souls so are you ready?"

Naruto did not trust himself to give an answer verbally, so he nodded. He did not know there were so many risk involved. But he made a promise and as far as he was concerned he was going to see this to the end. And death, no way he was not ready to die. Not until he has achieved his dreams and stood on the pinnacle of what it means to be strong in the elemental nations. Not until he had a family of his own.

Hana placed the scroll on the Dralion's body, and had naruto place his hands on the scroll. Naruto noticed the binding seal was on both sides of the scroll. Chakra was needed to activate the scroll, and since Naruto did not yet know how to channel chakra, Hana had to do it. But this was a tricky part. She had to make sure she was not in contact with both parties and the scroll, or else a three way binding will occur and that will not be good. Not at all. So the only thing she could do was flare her chakra through all of her meridians in close proximity, so that the resulting chakra waves will activate the scroll. And it worked like a charm.

The scroll started to glow, and naruto felt a force that seemed to be both pulling something out of him and pushing something else in, the glowing symbols on the scroll began to rapidly spin making Naruto dizzy from looking at it. Soon the scroll started to generate a heat that seeped into naruto's body, bringing with it searing pain that had no definite feeling. Sometimes it felt like he was freezing, other times he felt like he was on fire or being cut by millions of blades. The torture got so much as it showed no sign of stopping or slowing down. His breathing had become rapid and on his tanned skin was rivulets of sweat and steam as heat escaped from his body. When the pain moved to his brain he could not hold on anymore as he started screaming. The pain was unbearable, and Naruto wanted to so badly let go of that scroll and be free of this pain. But he held on, because even with all the pain he still remembered his promise. He still remembered the principles he had chosen to live his life with. So even though he was screaming he would endure the pain no matter what. It did not take long for unconsciousness, to take him. But it was bliss and release, it was freedom, and he loved it.

Somewhere dark, where the words of man can not be spoken or the joys of life enjoyed. This place was the spacial dimension, a big storage scroll that has no end and no beginning, only chaos and darkness. A place where an ordinary man would be ripped to shreds just moments of his arrival there. This spacial dimension was a prison to countless souls and bodies, living or dead, human or beast. In a special area of this dimension where the power of chaos was a hundred times more ferocious and dangerous. So much so that even a sage won't survive here and would be ripped to shreds in seconds. A tear in space was formed directly over one of the most dangerous residents of this place. A red slitted eye opened for the first time in twelve years as a fox like grin stretched over the animal like mouth of the eyes owner. Without any more hesitation the owner jumped up and flew straight for the tear in space, straight to the light, straight to freedom.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** hey guys, this is the next chapter, it took me a while to write this, all due to my laziness and the coiling dragon web novel. But I want to take this time to wish you all a merry Christmas even if mine is not exactly merry. Also I am pleading, guys please I need your reviews, honestly it helps me be a better writer, especially for those of you who have ideas of how this story can go, please tell me. Yes I still need a candidate for the fourth harem member. Next chapter I will put up a poll, but for now just send me your suggestions. Any have a happy holidays and I pray these last few days of twenty sixteen will unveil great and wonderful things so that you twenty seventeen will be filled with fulfillment, happiness and chocolate.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE:**

 **THE MIND STRENGTHENING STAGE AND KURAMA**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE** : Hey guys, am sorry for the late chapter, I already had the third chapter prepared but somehow something happened and I lost everything, including the thirty something chapters of the four novels I was writing. So now I have to start all over, but that does not mean I have given up. Well it's a shame about the novels though, but there's no use crying over spilled milk. Now this is the third chapter, I am still trying to figure out an uploading schedule, especially for my other five, so for now uploads will be a little sporadic at best and a little sparse. But don't worry I will try to fix it up as soon as possible. Without further ado, this is the third chapter.

In a but shell Naruto was almost seventy percent sure jiraiya cut and run, I mean how can you just give a few lessons for only one day and disappear stating that you will be back in a month. Well its been a week since the one month deadline was passed and there has not been a single hint of jiraiya apart from the usual gossip that seemed to be associated with his name.

But even though Naruto was really worried that jiraiya will not show up, these past few weeks has been a little hectic for him. Apart from his training schedule, the fact that he now had a dralion to take care of was extremely taxing. Sure he had the money to take care of them both, all he had to do was shift the food timetable jiraiya made for him, to more cheaper stuffs then he would be able to keep up with the bottomless pit that is Mesuraion, of course her name was extremely peculiar, calling a dralion lioness even in another language was to much of a joke, so he shortened it to Sura.

Her growth has been a little stable, but she is still pretty much a child so her diet had to be delicate, but not to much. Because in the end she was still a hybrid beast of both demon and holy heritage, so she could not be too domesticated or in the future she will be completely domesticated. So while her feeding has been delicately administered she was no stranger to blood and fresh meat. In a little under two months Hana believed that she could start training, a beast have an above average intelligence when compared to normal animals. And its even more so for beast at the middle and later stages of the genin realm, they could have intelligence almost comparable to humans, and the stronger they become the more brain power the can command. Beast at the sage and kages level have the ability to speak in human tongues, many of them are even wiser than humans themselves, but the only difference is that they are still mostly driven by their animal like instincts, which if you think about it, is not that different from humans.

Hana had also taken it upon her self to understand Sura's ancestry. Dralion's are extremely rare as Naruto came to find out, so rare that the chance of sporting on was a one in a billion ratio. That and every Dralion's met don't have a set ancestry. Some can be the offspring of a profound snow lion and a poison dragon, or of a flood dragon and the suna wind lion. There are a myriad of species, but for some reason if dragons don't mate with their own race, or at least a race similar to theirs like the demonic lizards or serpent species, that usually mate with the lion species and nothing else. For millions of years, this has been the trend between the dragon species and their mating habits, it has led people to believe that the dragon and lion species were some how in league with each other, a dragon will never attack a lion if it could help it. And the same thing could also be said for the lions. Because of this strange relationship most beast tamers always like to have at least two or three beast of both species around them. Apart from the fact that they could coexist together, they give protection for when the tamer is traveling in areas encroached by either the dragon or lion species.

Sura's ancestry was a little baffling she is the grandchild of a true dragon, or at least a species of dragon that has an extremely pure bloodline of the true dragon. True dragons have no distinction among them, there is no poisonous, or earth or any other defining characteristics among them except for the color of the skin and skalds. True dragons are not considered holy or demonic beast but a third distinction, called magical beast. For magical beast the energy they use has no connection what so ever to chakra or any other natural energy that runs through the very fabric of the elemental nations. They have the ability to make something out of nothing, command the elements with just a thought and destroy and entire kingdom in the time it takes to make a cup of instant ramen. For sura it has been determined her holy side of her genes come from her dragon ancestry. Not all dragons are holy as even they have their fair share of demonic species too, but at this point whether Sura had a holy or true magical dragon for an ancestor is unknown. As for her lion side, when Hana found out she had a look of terror on her face, she said the ancestry of Sura from her lion side was the reason why the soul bonding was so painful for naruto, even with the bond Hana speculated that if the Sura wanted naruto dead, regardless of her powerful he was, he couldn't stop it. Sura was from a species of demonic lions that was as ancient as the very dust and air of the elemental nations, a creature that even if it faced a magical dragon, that dragon will have to flee regardless of how powerful it is. Sura is defended from the mythical Suanni lion, also known as the heaven devouring lion. A creature of eight blood red eyes, silky golden fur and a height of a hundred and fifty meters, towering over the whole of Konoha and worse of all with an appetite for souls and energy. The suanni lions had the power to eat any and everything, even the heavens themselves and the boundless seas, ancient legends have depicted the suanni lions as universe devouring existences. The magical dragon was at the apex of all beast, but the suanni lion is one of the four demon generals of the underworld, personal lackeys of the Shinigami and a hundred times more powerful than magical beast.

Their only challenge will come from the four celestial beasts, the vermilion bird of the northern sun, the black turtle of the southern earth, the azure dragon of the eastern seas, and white tiger of the western winds. All these legendary creatures each have their own descendants on the mortal plain, while the existed in other dimensions. One thin was for sure though, even if Sura had a garden lizard's bloodline with no connection to a dragon at all, she would still be a force to be reckon with in the future when she has grown and come into her heritage.

For now though she was still a cub, a cub that was currently nibbling on Naruto's ears in the early hours of the morning. With a groan naruto got up from his bed, he headed for the kitchen with sura trailing at his feet looking all innocent as if she did not just wake him at two am in the morning. According to Hana since she was still young she had no idea how to control her hunger which was most definitely brought about by her uncontrolled activation of her devouring ability. A bowl was placed in front of sura, and without any look of thanks whatsoever she dived head first into the delicacy in front of her and devoured it just like her demonic ancestor she devoured it definitely and swiftly, then she looks up at Naruto with her two different colored eyes. To any other person that would have been a really cute scene, but for Naruto all it did was send a shiver of fear tingling down his spine as he hastily filled the bowl and beat a hasty retreat out of the room. All he could hope for was that she grew up, and fast, if not he had no idea how he would survive before the two month period is over for her training to begin.

Currently we find naruto on the training field close to where he found sura, using the same routine he had been using for the past month or so, he was perched precariously on that slab of wood, which in turn was balanced on a completely smooth and round rock, and naruto who finds himself in the middle has a constantly boiling cup of tea on his head. Naturally a person in such a position will have to constantly split their attention in other to deal with the burning pain on their head, or keep themselves from falling and loosing a good number of their teeth. But for naruto he was currently doing the strangest thing. At that Moment he was reading!. And if that alone was not surprising he was completely still, his breathing took a regular rhythm, as he took big gulps of air according to the breathing technique jiraiya had asked him to practice. Initially he was supposed to practice the breathing techniques after the balancing exercise, but the constant and ardent training for the past month and few days had mad it so that Naruto was always performing the breathing technique unconsciously.

Currently he was reading a book on demonic and holy beast, apart from sura, naruto had zero to no knowledge concerning other demonic beast, and in the process of reading and improving his beast knowledge base, he had learnt to split his focus, even going as having a rudimentary control over the nerves of his body. Right now if Naruto had no wish to move, he wouldn't. Unless somebody way stronger than him intervened he was like a rock, unshakable and unmovable. As for the perpetually boiling cup of tea that was perched on his head, naruto had learnt and mastered what it was like to be totally still and disconnected from the world so no drop of liquid will be spilled. As for the pain of having a boiling cup of tea on top your head for hours on end. Naruto had learnt to actually convince himself that he was not in any pain whatsoever, that the hot tea on his head was nothing more than a cool refreshing cup of imperial sake that just came out of the fridge.

Of course Naruto had no idea he had achieved a state of mind, legendary ninjas will spend years painstakingly trying to develop. An ability to be able to in a nutshell exercise control over the various factors of your body, from something as insignificant as the waste in your stomach to the very control of your nerves and to a very high degree your emotions.

This brutal training had brought Naruto to the very peak of the bone strengthening stage, all he needed now was a little push to move into the mind strengthening stage. And that push came in form of Sura being naughty. The young dralion had in a very rare moment since she was born been very quiet as she watched Naruto silently train, but of course all good things must come to an end. Which in this case meant Sura became bored and decided it would be fun to spit a beam of white light at Naruto. At first the light dissipated before it got to Naruto, but for some reason it generated a force which could not be seen. The force smashed into Naruto throwing him into a spin as he struggled to get himself back under control. Even though the strange force was not very strong it left a feeling of extreme fear and cold on Naruto.

His whole thoughts were in complete disarray as he struggled to get himself back under control. The attack came as a surprise, but the bigger unknown fact was that this attack which Sura released was extremely weak due to her being only a baby. But it was mysterious in the sense that it was not a physical attack, but rather a mental attack.

Much like how many ninjas who had experienced a life of bloodshed and killing will develop a sort of mental and spiritual energy called killing intent, which had the express purpose of dowsing their opponents in a feeling of supreme fear and death. In most cases for weaker people when they are exposed to killing intent from a stronger person will have their heart or brain ruptured due to fear, which in turn leads to being deader than dead.

But Sura, who had not experienced any killing of any sort, and still retained a certain degree of innocence had innately developed a technique very similar to killing intent. The only difference is her own attack did not go for the mindset of a person in other to influence fear, no. It went straight for the soul. If she was a little bit stronger than she was, Naruto definitely will have lost his life. Because this was a sure kill technique for opponents both on the same level of power or below it. If care is not taking even stronger opponents if they are not affected just like Naruto, they might sustain permanent damage to their souls, putting them into a vegetative state or a coma for the rest of their lives.

It was hard to imagine what Sura was thinking when she decided to fire a bolt of soul attack on Naruto. It was established she wouldn't kill him, yet. Since he was stronger than her and they had a bond. If this was just a result of her being bored, Naruto could not help but shudder at how headache filled and frustrating the future will be if sura decided she was bored in the center of a huge crowd of people.

Still spinning Naruto frantically tried to get himself under control, and he was to be commended that even with the spinning his cup of teas had not spilled a single drop, even with the fear in his heart, twelve year old Naruto was built of sterner stuff. He had to live on his own and deal with a lot of things from when he was young on his own. He had to face poverty, loneliness and sickness all by himself. It spoke volumes of the will power the young boy had. And so in that desperate moment, of fear and dizziness. Naruto took the next step in his journey to be a ninja. He chose to master his heart and fears with a resolve that firmly strengthened the foundation of his soul and mind, making them stronger than any other child his own age. And due to the mental toll of Sura's attack, Naruto lost access to all his five senses. He could not feel, see, hear, smell, or taste anything. The whole world became a massive blanket of darkness and heat, that seemed to be just focused at the top of his skull.

Soon that wave of heat began to spread, never leaving the area of his head, but spreading to all corners and space. The heat increased to the point of being unbearable. It was a whole lot of pain from a whole lot of places. His eyes were burning, his ears ringing, his nose assaulted by the smell of burning flesh, his skin had an unbearable itch and his tongue had the foulest of taste in his mouth.

Soon it all came to a climax, as the heat he felt began to rapidly cool down to a temperature of extreme cold, but only for a moment before it all seemed to flow out from his eyes, mouth, ears, nose, and skin. Naruto opened his eyes to see that his body, or just his head that is, had excreted a sort of translucent and foul smelling membrane. If it was before, Naruto would not have minded, but right now his five senses where in a state of high sensitivity. It was as if they had improved to be ten times better, he could see clearer and farther, hear the sound of a fly's beating wings from 50 meters away, and he could smell so clearly that the scent of green and tree assaulted his nose as he took in the very essence of the forest of death, he saw Sura looking at him, and from the incredibly smug look on her face if it could be called that and not an overly sinister grin of pure malevolence and destruction. It seemed she planned this after all, they were connected. But naruto had refused to explore that connection, seeing her as only an animal he promised to take care of. A pet. But it seemed he was wrong to do so, which made him feel stupid and guilty all of a sudden. He had looked at Sura as a burden he could not be saddled with but had to put up with because he never went back on his word, and he promised to look after her no matter what. He may have saw as a burden but sura saw him as her family, the only one she had, so from their connection she was able to determine how close he was to a breakthrough, so she gave him the push he needed.

Naruto from that moment made a choice to wholeheartedly take care of and love sura. The Gods just gave him a family on a platter of gold, they gave him a little sister, who was he to refuse.

Surprisingly Naruto was still perched on the slab, even with the loss of his senses he still kept his balance, the only thing that went wrong was the cup of tea that somehow shattered on his head. Naruto took a look at sura once again, and right there standing by her side was his runaway teacher jiraiya, at first Naruto wanted to yell and scream at him for abandoning him for two months with no contact whatsoever, but the exhaustion from his soul being attacked and his breakthrough into the mind strengthening stage caught up with him. He had no control as his eyes rolled up to the back of his head and he fell unconscious standing on a slab of wood balance on an extremely round stone that occasionally wiggled, safe to say it was sort of embarrassing.

When next Naruto opened his eyes, it was not to the familiar forest scene he had imprinted on his mind before going unconscious or the familiar lecherous face of Jiraiya. No instead he found himself in a sewer of some sort, with varying pipes of different color and sizes. Even as he watched he could see a pitch black pipe that was quite larger than the others come into being. It was building itself, though its rate of growth was so slow to the point of being negligible, but instinctively Naruto could trace the growth of the pipe. Even if he had no idea what it was, he felt a part of it, and it a part of him. And that was just for the uncompleted black pipe, there were two other large pipes, and each of this pipes had dozens more of tiny little pipes connected to it. One of them gave out a light blue color while the other was just like white mist.

Suddenly a deep voice rang out in the solitude of the sewer.

" Are you going to keep staring at your source pathways forever instead of coming to see me?"

The voice had a mocking tone to it, but it gave the feeling of power, pride, death and arrogance. Of course even though Naruto was currently feeling dread at the sudden sound of a voice, one tiny part of his mind whispered to him, that this guy sounded like a pompous ass.

For a veritable long moment, Naruto stood there paralyzed with fear at the voice and the aura it released.

" I am waiting boy, hurry up. I don't have all day you know."

Slowly but surely the twelve year old began to pick his way through the sewer as he made his way to the place where he heard the voice from. After turning a particular corner he came across a peculiar sight, five feet away the sewer came to an abrupt end, instead what he saw was an endless sea of white, and right in the middle just a few feet from its starting point an enormous fox was sitting down quite like a human, on a dinner table, with a plate of noodles right in front of him, not to mention this giant fox had nine massive giant tails. In a situation like this Naruto could not be blamed for forgetting that he was supposed to be afraid in the presence of this peculiar fox, but instead he burst out laughing causing no small amount of irritation to fox. Besides he wouldn't laugh on normal circumstances but, a giant fox, on a giant table, eating an abyssal amount of food. Who wouldn't laugh at such a scene, unfortunately for naruto, this was not a fox who liked being laughed at.

" What's so funny punk?"

If no one told him before or if he was to stupid to realize it, this was not the kind of person or animal you should offend. Naruto's joyous state came to an abrupt and crashing demise as the next round of chuckling he was about to release never saw the light of day. In that regard it was back to being cowered by fear in front of the oppressive aura being released and the intimidating form of its owner.

The fox thankfully did not say anything more, as he chose to ignore Naruto and focus on the meal in front of him. It was almost as if he could not be bothered to deal with Naruto, for all intents and purposes this kid in front of him was probably an ant in front of his majesty and glory. But credit had to be given, even with the fear he felt, Naruto was not someone who will let his fear rule him, the journey to the top is wrought with dangers and people who let their fears rule them usually end up dying a lot faster than expected.

" Excuse mister fox, where the hell are we?"

The huge fox was surprised, the question was asked with such child-like curiosity and innocence it was suffocating, it was quite obvious to see that Naruto was trying to play the cute lost kid, of course his choice of words were a little coarse. But what really threw the fox for a loop was the complete lack of fear. The kid in front of him asked that question with such a conviction you would think he was just talking to a normal human person, and not the almost sixty feet big red monster of pure death and destruction.

" well kid, since you are so adamant about disturbing my meal why don't you take a seat. I will be explaining a lot of things so I have a few rules. One don't ask questions while am talking or I will rip off your head. Two pay attention to all that I am saying or I will rip of your head, three if you call me mister fox again I will rip of your head capice?"

All the answer Naruto could give was the rapid nodding of his head. Because basically if he did anything wrong, this strange entity will rip his head off. And whether the devil likes it or not, he quite preferred to have his head where it is thank you very much. So he had no choice but to do something he had never done before in his life when facing another person or eh…talking animal, and that was sitting still.

" First of all this place is your mindscape, it holds your memories and it is the only gate to the void. Secondly your mindscape is located in your sea of consciousness, which is in turn located in your soul. Your sea of consciousness is what generates the mental power and fortitude you use for training and also it powers your mindscape, infusing mental energy to give a very retentive memory and mind base, which will turn help you understand the natural laws of ninjutsu, and all other martial circles. And by understanding this laws you generate energy for your sea of consciousness as you increase in your cultivation level. So basically both the mindscape and sea of consciousness reply on each other."

Naruto was speechless, he had no idea this was how his body worked. Though he did not understand some terms like sea of consciousness and its location, this was still something that had to do with his cultivation and increase of his strength. So if he was not listening before, right now he had his whole concentration on the giant beast in front of him, who had somehow taking the air of an ancient sage giving a lecture.

" Three the pipes you saw on your way here is how the mindscape portrays your energy channels. You have three main energy channels with a fourth under construction. You have a chakra channel, a chi channel which is the energy developed by your life force, you also have your bloodline channel, which is running with both the positive and negative energy of the elemental nations spirit energy. Achieving the yin-yang balance bloodline of the uzumaki family. As for the fourth energy channel you have it mainly because of my fault. This channel is double layered for some reason, but I attribute it to the fact you have a soul bond with a beast of some kind, the top layer runs with the power of the void, of nothingness and everything. It is the power that made everything and the power that can destroy it. My chakra is a void Nature attributed chakra, so when I escaped my prison through a tear in the void, and came into your body, which I might add was used as the gateway to the void when your damnable parents decided to seal me, but more on that later."

When Naruto heard, the word your parents he almost broke the golden rule of not asking questions or interrupting. But whether the fox liked it or not he had started a fire that would not be easily put out. All in all it was surprising how well Naruto was taking all this. He suddenly appeared in a strange place and encountered a giant fox, who for some reason knew about his parents. Regardless of the whole training to be a ninja most kids his age will already be panicking and calling for their mommies, while the small majority that did not panic will think the big fox was just spouting a huge amount of bullshit. But Naruto was the one in a million person who always liked to give people the benefit of the doubt. It was touching really, but it was totally and utterly stupid. Someone had to beat some sense into Naruto, because in this world which they lived in, an attitude like that was a sure fire way to get yourself killed.

" the second layer runs with the energy developed by the bond between you and your beast. It will vary from time to time considering the origins of beast are somewhat unclear. While they can use chakra they also have abilities that rely on a strange type of energy that has not been successfully identified. Next thing for you to know is my name, I am called Kurama, and I am a celestial immortal demonic beast. Basically I am above the power level of a lot of people on the elemental nations. Above the kages realm is the sage realm, and above the sage realm is dawn immortal realm, then that is followed by the celestial immortal realm, and after that the true immortal realm. Which is the pinnacle of strength. Every million years only one person might be lucky enough to reach that realm. And since the sage of six paths ascended to the heavens, there has not been another true immortal on this plane of existence. The sage realm is the peak of any mortal cultivator's strength, but if a sage successfully enters the dawn immortal realm, then that person is guaranteed to live forever and be a God. I am also the guardian beast of the Uzumaki clan stationed on this world. And yes there are other uzumaki clan branches on other worlds and the higher planes. In time you will come to learn all this things. Am sure your stupid pervert of a teacher who if I might mention is also your God father will tell you. Next you are a direct descendant of the original uzumaki clan stationed on its origin plane or world in the four higher planes. It is from the celestial world of the west. The only way for you to return or go to that plane of existence is only if you can train to the dawn immortal stage and ascend. Of course that could take the next five hundred years, as an uzumaki that amount of time will not be a problem for you. Your parents are kushina uzumaki and Minato namikaze and as far as I know they are both as dead as a door nail. On the eve of your birth your parents came to Konoha, your father was born here an orphan but he still had emotional ties to these place. His stupid emotional attachment prompted them to decide that you should be born here, as a way to also help you make a connection to your fathers home, since they were both preparing to ascend with you to the celestial world of the west, where the original clan was waiting and the mantle of next clan head was waiting for your mother and in time you. I chose to accompany them so as to keep them safe. But somehow our position and intentions in Konoha was leaked by someone from the clan. Enemies came, powerful enemies. They were all elites from the mysterious akatsuki organization, three of them were there, a masked uchiha called Tobi, and the two undying ninjas hidan and kakuzu. Somehow this Tobi was able to control me, making me loose control of myself and begin a rampage. At the time I was camouflaged as a tiny little fox right at the center of the village. So it was inevitable that as I changed back into my original form, a lot of people died. Your father was a master of space-time seals and was also know as the fastest ninja alive, he was able to get me out of Konoha, then we found out they had come for your mother. And reason was because she was a gate. When someone houses one of the nine celestial demonic beast, that were born from the primordial God tree, they will gain the ability to use and manipulate the void, or even more terrifying they will become the gate that releases the millions of evil demons imprisoned in the void. If such a thing should happen, then the destruction of the elemental nation is confirmed, this guys were truly strong since they were immortals just like your parents, your parents were fighting a battle on two fronts, one against me and the other against the akatsuki. Not to mention your mother just gave birth so she was incredibly weak. Your parents decided to seal me away, but in the state of mind I was, I could not be kept in a person, so the best option was imprison me in the void. For that a gate was required but your mother could not be the one, since she was already weak and injured the transfer will kill her, and make me stuck in the void for all eternity. So they chose you their innocent son, it was a hard thing to do but they had no other choice. There can only be one gate every generation, so if I was sealed in a new person while your mother was still alive, she will loose her ability to be a gate, shifting the akatsuki attention to the new candidate. In this situation that candidate is you, you would be in danger yes, but lives were at stake and this was the sacrifice they had to make, and besides they believed that you will be strong enough to fight the akatsuki in the future. And so I was sealed, and after that I don't ow what happened, but after reviewing a few of your memories, I can see your parents died and the members of the clan did not come to find you, causing you to live a poor life, and it seems even your new teacher, who is not just your Godfather but also your fathers master did not come looking for you. Your life has been hard, but I can only promise that it will be better from now on. I have gave you a lot to think about, so I will send you out, not to mention you need to confront that teacher of yours and demand some answer let him tell you why he abandoned you. When you have done that I will bring you back here. Goodbye Naruto."

Before naruto could open his mouth to protest, a black wind came and took him out of his mindscape. Kurama who looked on as the image of Naruto dissipated shook his head in pity, and then he moved his gaze past the endless plains of white to a pair of pillars that had the depiction of a roaring nine tailed fox, sitting at the base of a giant tree, which had the face of a man. This was the nine tails void gate that resided in Naruto's mind. At this moment it vibrated a bit, letting out a stream of void energy that will strengthen and build a pathway for void energy in Naruto's body. Kurama sighed and spoke out loud

" There's a storm coming father, I hope I can get this descendant of yours ready in time. Or else I fear everything you hold dear will end."

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know this chapter came a little late, so am sorry but this is the best I could do. I have decided to focus on this story for now, but I am only going to be able to post once a month or twice, or sometimes in the case of extreme inspiration as high as five. But until that happens my regular schedule will be once a month. Also guys I need those reviews, I need to know what am doing right or wrong. And of course I would like to increase my already inflated ego with words of encouragement. But regardless guys please review and tell me what you think. In the words of the scorpion king LIVE FREE AND DIE WELL.**


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR:**

 **GODFATHER AND THE DANCE OF FOUR SEASONS.**

When Naruto woke up, it was already the middle of night. And he was lying on his bed safe. Sura was sleeping at the foot of the bed, and jiraiya right on the old rickety chair that had been with Naruto for as long as he could remember, for as long as he had been abandoned. For a moment he just wanted to feel the night, to feel the invisible layers of vapor in the air that when morning comes will coat the plants and flowers of Konoha city, a coat of color will be what all the plants and window panes in will adorn when the sun comes out to play in the morning. It was surreal and peaceful, everything had a place and a reason for that place in the universe. But as of right now, all naruto could feel was pain and anger, and it seemed no matter how hard he tried to appreciate the beauty of the night, of the transformation it enabled the morning to bestow, he could not get the heat of simmering hatred out of his mind or the seed of hate that had somehow become planted In his heart. As of this moment there was nothing surreal in his life anymore, just aches.

At this point jiraiya opened his eyes, for the few moments when naruto had been awake and staring out the window, so had Jiraiya, who in that moment was in a state of melancholy as he lamented how much like his parents Naruto was. But the next question Naruto asked did more than shatter jiraiya's view of the world.

" How long have you known you are my godfather?"

It took a while for jiraiya to reorganized his thoughts, this was a tight spot that would be incredibly hard for him to weasel out of. In his mind and heart he felt quite sure that it was not yet time for Naruto to know the truth of his heritage or how much of a connection they shared. Apart from protecting him from his parents enemies until he was stronger, jiraiya himself was not ready to confront this issue. Because he knew one thing the moment he acknowledged Naruto and told him everything there is to know about his heritage and their connection to each other both their worlds would change. Because Jiraiya knew for a fact that if such a thing was to happen he would no longer be living for himself anymore. All that he was, all that he is and all he will ever be, will sorely dedicated to Naruto for his upbringing and happiness.

But strong as he was, this was a commitment jiraiya was afraid to make. Was he scared?…yes. Because he also had an inherent fear that Naruto would not accept him. He had hopelessly and utterly failed this young man, but Jiraiya knew one thing though, he had to make it up to Naruto, in a person's journey to the top, to be strong and stand above your peers as the ultimate warrior a person had to go through a lot of ups and downs and uncountable amount of setbacks and heartbreaks. But as for those of them who successfully preserver, they will develop what is known as a warriors heart. Young Naruto small as he is already showed the heart of a warrior, the determination he had shown to get to his current level was more than enough to give a fearless heart and an unbreakable spirit. This boy had been forced to grow up to quickly, and jiraiya knew it was better to acknowledged his maturity no matter how young he looked.

" I have known, since the very day we met. The clues were quite glaring that it came as a shock to me that I was not able to find you in time."

" Did you even look for me, did you even care?"

At this point in time Naruto was already crying, it goes a long way to show that no matter how strong he was, he was still just a twelve year old boy.

" quite frankly I had no idea you existed till the day we met. I was under the impression you perished with your parents when they had to seal the guardian of the Uzumaki clan. Which I am seventy percent sure is the reason you found out about my identity right?"

To this all Naruto could do was nod, he had no reason to keep the giant fox a secret from jiraiya, besides at this point in time keeping a secret would be to mentally exhausting.

" Where ever going to tell me?, or did you think you were going to wait till I was ready?"

The sarcasm behind those words were quiet blatant, but lucky for jiraiya that was just part of the reason why he would have wanted to drag out this reunion of theirs.

" I was not going to tell when you were ready Naruto, I was going to tell you when I was. We are both wearing different shoes, and we are both feeling a huge amount of pain, you from the feeling of being abandoned and me from the feeling of being the one who abandoned you. You have no idea what it feels like to know that you spent twelve years roaming around the world, while the single most important person in your life was languishing and suffering in the very place you called your home. I failed you Naruto, and this was precisely the reason why I left you for the past two months. I needed to gather my thoughts. I am not going to apologize because quite frankly I believe we are past the point of sorry, because I know it won't do you any good, neither will it change what has happened. The only thing that I can promise you is that I can do better, that I will do better. I owe you boy, the karma between us is no small matter, and so I intend to pay in full if you would let me."

Growing up on the streets of Konoha, had made Naruto a very good judge of character, while his life had been particularly hard, he had been fortunate to have a lot of people who took care of him, while most of the residents chose to ignore him, after all he was just an orphan from the streets, many more people also took an interest in him. So from a young age he had been exposed to both the light and the dark side of the people of Konoha and while the good definitely outweighed the bad considering most of this people were just normal civilians, Naruto still had to learn to be careful of the people he trusted.

Did he trust Jiraiya?...hell no, but Naruto was sure of one thing and that was the sincerity jiraiya used in speaking to him, you can not fake that kind of emotion, for that he was willing to give the old geezer a chance, besides Naruto absolutely had no idea how to hold a grudge.

 **Somewhere between the border of the fire nation and the mist nation**

 **Uzugakure.**

The uzumaki clan was in high alert, a situation that not many people ever hoped to once again experience in their lifetime had presented itself. The ancient statue of the uzumaki clan's guardian had lit up like a beacon for hours on end. Every member were all quite able to draw a conclusion to this phenomenon. The guardian beast that was sealed in the void almost thirteen years ago had returned, to many denizens of the clan this was a matter of extreme joy, especially for the younger generation who never had the chance of undergoing the clan's baptism to awaken their latent bloodline and decide which branch of the family they belonged to.

But not many people in the clan were happy about this development, the few hidden elders who quite possibly had a hand in the disaster of almost thirteen years ago broke out in cold sweats. The guardian beast, Kurama the nine tailed demon fox, was more than just a guardian or a beast. He was an immortal and quite frankly he was the only one with absolute power of the branch clan on the elemental nation. For lack of a better word he was the patriarch of the clan, and with his return it meant the power that these secret elders had carefully consolidated on the clan for the past thirteen years was under threat of being undermined. Not to mention they also had reasons to fear, their actions had caused the death of a direct descendant of the main clan, and not just any direct descendant, she was the daughter of the next head of the main branch clan, and his only daughter. They destroyed his chance of continuing his family line through his daughter, killing both her and her unborn child along with that talented husband of hers. If their secret ever gets out, death will be a blessing for them, but it would be a blessing they won't get, because they with their family will be tortured for all of the duration of their miserable lives until there's not a single speck of their bloodline remaining. A reckoning was coming and they all knew they had to make preparations if they were to survive.

While the traitorous elders were on the verge of loosing control of their bladders, someone else was extremely happy. Fourteen year old Karin uzumaki had found out something peculiar about the awakening, and if she had found out, she was sure members of the main branch had already found out, and the news was also spreading all over the clan situated here on the elemental nations. A new gate has been born, and the system set by the main clan had made it possible that when a new gate was made, that persons entire family line and achievements will be displayed on a ceremonial tablet below the fifty foot tall statue of the guardian. And right now with tears rolling down her cheeks Karin and the members of the clan beside her were all looking at the information on the tablet, meticulously and perfectly arranged and categorized.

 **Naruto Uzumaki-**

 **New gate and vessel of the guardian beast Kurama the Kyubi**

 **Kushina Uzumaki and Minato Namikaze-**

 **Parents**

 **Age-**

 **Twelve**

 **Strength-**

 **Mind strengthening stage**

 **Teacher-**

 **Jiraiya of the sannin**

 **Current location.**

 **Konoha city- state of Konohagakure- Fire nation.**

Not just the fact that the guardian beast had returned, what was most peculiar was that the son of her aunt had survived all theses years. Karin could not say she remembered her aunt very much, but uzumaki children had the ability to remember their childhood in snippets from as far back as eight months old, then as they got older they could remember clearly the following years. Karin remembered the woman who took care of her after her mother died during childbirth and her father abandoned her due to grief, Kushina was the only mother figure Karin had ever had, and when she died when Karin was just two years old, she then taking care of by maids. As of the time, only her and her aunt were members of the direct bloodline on the elemental nations, so even after her death Karin was well taking care of, due to the influence her blood granted her. But things changed after her death, with the disappearance of the guardian the clan became split up into factions according to the twelve bloodline limits of the uzumaki family. Seven of them joined power and took control of the clan. And with the guardian missing for almost thirteen years, there was no way for members of the younger generation to undergo the baptism to awaken their later bloodline and figure out which branch the belonged too. So in that aspect there were a lot of clansmen without a bloodline limit, naturally since she fell under this category and she was a member of the main clan, she became the defacto leader of those without their bloodline limits. But in the end they were still suppressed by the older generation of the clan who still had their bloodline limits activated. And right now she was happy her cousin was still alive, but he was pitifully weak, at his age members of the uzumaki clan will already either be genins about to become chunin or jonin. But she was stuck here for an entire year before she will have the chance to leave for the tri annual martial competition between the five elemental nations and the countless smaller powers under them. But things were about to change, she could feel it, and for that one year she was sure his master and the guardian can look after him just until she gets there and brings him home. Then they can fix their fractured clan and grow stronger so that they can go back home to the main branch.

Ripples spread about the entire elemental nation branch of the uzumaki clan. An aura of change and tension was in the air, and for those secret elders, no one could feel the pins and needles that were floating around more than them, one thing was for sure though something peculiar was coming and definitely the odds were not in their favor.

" Naruto what are you doing?. Staring at their statues for so long does not achieve anything."

" I know old geezer, its just that I want to know them, I want to know what they look like. I wish they were here."

Jiraiya had no idea how to answer that. He knew Naruto was hurt and confused, for lack of a better word he knows the young man is lost, they both were. And it sucked for jiraiya that he had no idea how to help Naruto address this pain, heck he never knew how I faced his. Maybe he never did because this was a wound he had been carrying for almost thirteen years, and in all that time this wound had never healed. Minato was more than just a student to jiraiya, jiraiya had met Minato when the boy was only eight years old. An orphan who was somehow smart enough to sneak into academy classes far ahead of his grade and learn all on his own how to be a ninja. But what most people never knew was that Minato was also a thief, and at his tender age, he could steal things most people three to four times his age could never steal not to mention the little bugger was so fast. On a particular occasion Minato chose to rob the wrong target, he chose to rob jiraiya and that did not end well for him, because when jiraiya caught him he hung the young boy from the top of the sixty foot city walls, while he reclined in a shade drinking a bottle of the fines fruit wine Konoha had to offer. Minato did not make a single sound, unless once when he apologized for stealing, and then he kept silent bearing the torment of being hung upside down under the blistering heat of a sun baked city wall. He was like that for six hours until he passed out, and from that moment jiraiya took him in and raised him like his own son. Looking at naruto it was like history repeated itself all over again. But one thing was for sure though, he was going to make Naruto a force more dangerous than his mother or father ever was, he was not going to loose the only family he has left. Naruto had brought a ray of hope to his life, he brought sunlight regardless of grieving atmosphere they both had over them, jiraiya could see nothing but sunny days ahead for both of them.

" come on naruto is time to begin your training, I did promise you a taijutsu technique.

It was as if a switch was pushed as Naruto moved his eyes from the statue of his parents and followed jiraiya. In no time at all they found themselves back at the clearing where naruto had been training for the past two months.

" Naruto the fighting style I am about to teach you, is the most basic of all fighting techniques on the elemental nations."

He WS interrupted before he could go any further.

" Basic?, but you promised to teach me an awesome taijutsu style, why are you teaching me the basics, I already learnt the basics from the academy."

" Naruto what you learned from the academy was not a basic taijutsu style, instead it was fashioned and engineered from a basic taijutsu style. And don't look down on what am about to teach you, the basic taijutsu martial arts has served as the foundation for every other martial arts that has been ever created. If you are able to master it, you will be able to create your own technique in the future. I have no intention of passing on any of the fighting skills, I know. Instead I will give you the tools to create yours."

It was quite rare to see Naruto speechless, in fact it was a miracle. Naruto is a boy of many layers and complex emotions, but his default settings has always been loud and irritating, a typical kid. And as much as that excited look on Naruto's face sent a cold shivering down Jiraiya's spine, he swallowed, hard and prepared to make something out of this Godson of his.

" Alright Naruto, first you should know, in all the elemental nations there are four types of basic taijutsu martial arts, and they are known as the dance of four seasons. Every elemental nation is specialized in a particular season, the fire nation uses the summer dance, same with suna, the cloud nations uses the spring dance for some reason, the mist nations uses the winter dance, and the autumn dance is only spread among the elite clans of the elemental nations, like your Uzumaki clan and hyuga clan of the capital city where the emperor lives. I will teach you the summer dance and the winter dance, successfully master those two, and I will teach you a forbidden technique that you don't need a chakra core to use, do we have a deal?"

Naruto could do nothing but rapidly nod his head, he had been through an intense emotional rollercoaster ride, but he had a deep thirst to improve himself and stand out, so he prepared himself for jiraiya's teachings.

" first we are going to start with the summer dance, but to completely master the summer dance, you must understand the essence of the season, you must understand the intricacies of nature as it is woven tight in between the seams of summer and bring it forth as either an attacking strategy or a defending strategy and even an escaping strategy. The summer dance embodies the harshness of the summer sun and smooth sailing of both the wind and waves of the sea, which explains why they have been many wind, water and fire related taijutsu martial arts and even chakra techniques in those rare cases made from it. All the season embodies few or more of an element, but the only element that can be found prevalent in all the seasons is the element of wind, which makes easier for wind natured ninjas and martial artist to be able to successfully master all four seasons. Other natured users can also master the four seasons, some easier than the others while other will find it very hard. For example if a summer master attempts to master the winter dance, it is incredibly hard to impossible, especially if the summer user is a fire natured ninja, like me. And yes before you asks the question I did master the winter dance but it took me eight years. So first you will learn the summer dance, the dance of ferocious peace."

And then jiraiya started moving, it was in an almost magical way as he showed the simple stances to Naruto. There were only six stances to the dance that comprised of a few simple kicks, punches and other rather simple fighting movement, but in retrospect it released an essence the like which Naruto has never seen before. And in the process of looking trying to memorize the stances, he realized that the otherwise simple moves he thought he saw earlier was nothing of the sort.

He noticed a lot of other factors as jiraiya moved, there were muscle movement, breathing movements and intense hand eye coordination as he moved almost as if he was dancing. It was beautiful and dangerous, but it was still basic fighting moves, nothing more than the foundation for the power fighting styles he would create in the future.

" alright naruto is your turn, now try to replicate everything you have seen as much as you can, its only the first day so don't be surprised if you don't get everything right the first time, it took ma a year to master and two to perfect it total and incorporate it full into my fighting style, and it took even longer for me to make my own personalized techniques from it, so take it slowly brat or you might hurt yourself."

Naruto understood the essence of being patient, you don't become all powerful in a day, and if hurry your training you will have an unstable foundation making it difficult for a person to advance in the future.

As naruto began to make his move, replicating jiraiya's movements as much as possible he was unsatisfied, because he felt that he was not able to bring out the true power of the movements. On the other hand jiraiya was soundlessly gaping at his Godson, the boy was perfectly moving in accordance to the stance, no wasted movements, and no mistakes, the only thing missing was the muscle techniques and the rhythmic breathing needed to circulate chakra so that it could move with his fist. But that would be useless to naruto now. Until he gets to the genin realm and unlock his chakra pathways this move was next to useless for him, but still it was setting a good foundation if he learnt it before he entered the genin realm, well all is well that ends well jiraiya thought to himself.

And in that fashion for the next two weeks jiraiya made Naruto abandon his previous mode of training and focus on the dance of summer since it had already served its purpose. Now in other for Naruto to enter the genin realm he needed to learn how to sense the chakra in the air and atmosphere, and then learn to draw it into his body by opening his meridians for storage and his accupoints for receiving and absorption.

But that was a training that required a person to sit still, that was not naruto's style, which was why jiraiya decided to teach him the dance of four seasons, since its stances and muscle movements coupled with its breathing exercise had the peculiar ability to naturally draw chakra from the its users surroundings, which was why it was only taught to genin experts. But in this scenario it perfect for naruto.

People at the mind strengthening stage did not have their body augmented by chakra so practicing this move was dangerous for them, but naruto was not like them. Apart from being an uzumaki, a clan of people who were neigh immortal with their ridiculous longevity and bloodlines that somehow keeps them in constant balance with nature. If not for that the fact that Naruto was now the host for an immortal fox demon and a gate to the chaos realm. Practicing the dance of four seasons will be child's play or him.

Shikamaru Nara was puzzled, and if there was anybody who knew him they would know he hated anything that puzzled him, caused a conundrum or a problem he had to solve. Because such things will force him to think and as far as he was concerned thinking was just to much work.

So when He an Kiba met up with Naruto that faithful Friday evening after almost three weeks of not seeing the blond idiot they were both with a lot of surprises. First of which was that Naruto was now in the mind strengthening stage, second was his current teacher was the legendary jiraiya of the sannin, a man who is rumored to be a whole realm more powerful than their homage and the most powerful ninja the Konoha ninja force had in their ranks. Third this man was Naruto's Godfather, with that piece of information Shikamaru for the first time experienced what other people meant when they say they had their mind blown. Fourth and even more crazier was that the two most respected heroes of Konoha, total strangers who just happened to be around when Konoha was in his hour of greatest need were naruto's parents.

What the fuck!, Shikamaru had screamed out at the time when Naruto narrated that piece of information to him, Kiba on the other hand had an opposite reaction, he was completely silent. They had both known Naruto all their lives, and while they had other friends they were both closer to Naruto. And though they knew he had the moniker the prankster king from hell, they knew Naruto will never lie about something like this, not when his parents identity were involved.

The fourth reveal was even more catastrophic, the nine tailed demon fax was currently freeloading in Naruto's own body, for Shikamaru it was like meeting Shino Aburame allover again, but this time with a creature that is a hundred million times more dangerous than bugs. It was surprising, and shocking but surprisingly Shikamaru took it in stride, in his own opinion it was quite obvious that trapping the fox was the best thing to do for every involved party, except of course for the real perpetrators of the crime. And if Naruto is to be believed they are still out there.

" So naruto now that you know who you are, what are you going to do?"

" I don't know Shikamaru, everything is so confusing right now, but jiraiya says I should wait and just focus on my training. That he would take care of everything."

" if I were you, I will get in contact with the uzumaki clan, take over and have everybody in Konoha worship, and then we can put that high and mighty sasuke in his place."

Shikamaru looked sharply at Kiba, as he as usual reverted to his default setting of stupid and loud, almost broadcasting a secret Naruto told them in confidence, at least he had the decency to look sheepish and regretful, 'stupid dog not' Shikamaru thought to himself.

" don't do anything of the sort naruto, I think you should keep a low profile for now, since you don't know if the Uzumaki clan have enemies in Konoha, we know that the uchiha used to be one of the thirteen bloodlines of the uzumaki clan, until they split about four hundred years ago, somehow turned their hair black and became a clan that could rival the uzumaki in power. And since then they have been an enmity between both clans, which is why sasuke gives you such a hard time, it because your name is Uzumaki. Besides take it from me if people were to find out, forget the enemies, the attention on its own will be to damn troublesome."

"Shikamaru need I remind you that you think that everything is troublesome"

" Shut up Kiba you smell like a dog."

" Oi, who are you calling a dog deer boy, mister look at me am so scared of my mommy and girls because they are so troublesome and I would probably end up old and alone with dogs and puppies for companions!"

Shikamaru turned a disinterested look to Kiba and only said one word, that almost made Kiba explode in anger.

" sit boy!"

And after that they were treated to a plethora of colorful curses that spilled nonstop from Kiba's preteen mouth. Naruto looked on with a smile, even with such a big news his friends still remained his friends. He was more than aware how shocking and unexpected everything he told them was, most people will think he was lying, but his friends…they took all in stride, believed him and even gave him advice.

He never knew what he did to deserve friends like the both of them, but he made a silent promise to always be there for them come hell or high water, these boys were more than just his friends, they were his brothers. Besides they were an excellent comic relief especially when they were fighting. Which idiot will give this up.

Suddenly Sura pounced on Naruto, looking at him with those piteously huge eyes that had the power to make even the hardest of men gush with awe, he hated it, because he knew he could not resist it, and it reminded him of Konohamaru, the grandson of the hokage, and the boy who had taken on the self given title of the no 1 disciple of Naruto.

It was peaceful and Naruto was thankful for it, he grabbed sura and her wing stubs flapped in indignation at being manhandled by naruto, but when he started rubbing her head she gave a purr of delight and settled down to enjoy the ministrations of Naruto's skillful hand. Kiba and Shikamaru had already progressed to the point of throwing punches. Apparently their fight had progressed to a sparing match. Naruto could almost imagine how troublesome this will be Shikamaru. And as he watched on, for the first time in his life he wished this moment was stuck in place, this moment where he did not have to worry about tomorrow or the next, or what he would eat or how to keep his identity a secret until he was strong enough to defend himself. This moment made sense to him, and he cherished all the more. And like many other twelve year olds like him, he wished it would never end and that it would go on forever. How wrong he was!.

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE: hello guys, this is the fourth chapter, I was trying to see if I can make it a chapter a month or maybe two, on occasions of extreme inspiration it could be three. But this is the best I can do for now so please bear with me. Last chapter a reviewer mentioned that when I first introduced sura I gave the impression she was a boy. Yes that's true, which is my fault, so I apologize for the misdirection. Sura is female. Any way I would seriously appreciate some feedback and suggestions for the story. Any way thanks for reading. LIVE FREE AND DIE WELL**_

 _ **PS:PLEASE DON'T DIE I NEED THE READERS AND THE REVIEWS.**_


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE:**

 **THE GENIN REALM 1**

Naruto had less than a week left before the graduation exam. And while his training has be progressing rather smoothly he was almost out of time. Though it was not something to be too worried about since naruto knew jiraiya would still train him, regardless of whether or not he would be able to graduate the academy on time. But on that note Naruto was still a little anxious, he has been the dead last for some time so he had a little issue with how confident he could be. Not to mention he had no intention of letting his classmates advance far ahead of him, with them becoming official ninjas before him. It would be a shame he could never live down.

Right now Naruto finds himself in a sparing match with jiraiya, one that unfortunately he was woefully loosing. Jiraiya had even lowered his strength base to genin level. While his physical strength did not reduce, his cultivation strength was something jiraiya learnt to control, for times when he had to infiltrate places or escape from his enemies, he would bring his strength crashing down so that he could seem less harmless and throw his pursuers of his trail.

Jiraiya danced to the left, as he dodged a clumsily thrown punch by a completely exhausted Naruto, he countered by sending a fist to the mid section of the young man. It drove the air right out of his body and had naruto crumpled around his fist like a glove, he quickly head butted naruto, the force throwing him a few feet away. It was not as if there was that much power difference between them, jiraiya reduced his strength to give naruto a fighting chance, but he never reduced his speed or experience. He needed naruto to get used to fighting under pressure or with the specter of death hanging around him so that he could improve. A person who has experienced life and death battles will always be stronger than someone who just spent his or her time practicing without any real life battle experience.

Jiraiya moved forward, quickly closing the gap between them as he leap up in the air, attempting to stomp Naruto into the ground and end the fight.

In a desperation move during the apex of jiraiya's jump, naruto also jumped and delivered a drop kick that connected solidly and pushed jiraiya a few steps back. Quickly seizing his opportunity Naruto ran to jiraiya, who quickly whipped his leg out, in an attempt to deliver a kick to the side of Naruto's head. But naruto implemented a baseball slide as both his legs connected to jiraiya's lone standing leg, bringing the older man down in a heap as his chest and midsection colored heavily with the raised knees of Naruto who was still under him. Without giving him much time to react, naruto implemented a submission hold, called the triangle, by placing one of his legs under the throat of jiraiya and the other over his head. Then he used both his hands to pull jiraiya closer in an attempt to choke him into unconsciousness. But jiraiya was a veteran, and he had only just introduced wrestling moves to Naruto to expand his arsenal, since Naruto had only mastered the dance of summer to about seventy percent. The remaining percent was something he needed the full access of chakra to accomplish, so until he got to the genin realm, his progress was stuck for now.

In that regard, jiraiya had taught him the fighting style of a group of nomads he had had the pleasure of meeting and learning from, in a continent far to the west. They called their style of fighting wrestling, and it was very complicated as it was filled with attacks of all kind. From defensive attacks, to assassination attacks. But what caught jiraiya's attention was their incapacitating attacks. And for someone like jiraiya who liked to interrogate his prisoners without them running away or trying to kill themselves it was a heaven sent move. And young Naruto took the wrestling moves like fish to water even if it was just under a week. For one thing though his rate of advancements was astonishing and abnormal, it left jiraiya feeling intimidated at the amount of raw talent that was just hiding in naruto's little body. At least naruto no longer looked liked an impoverished nine year old, but closer to his age of twelve and some change.

Jiraiya rolled over still in the triangle lock, and exerted some strength to get up, with naruto perched precariously around his head like a snake. And then he quickly brought naruto crashing down to unforgiving ground hard. Naruto involuntarily spat out blood as he laid there completely spent and covered in blood.

He was sure he had some internal injuries and a few cracked ribs and bones. Jiraiya was brutal with his training, and naruto did not know how much of this he could take anymore.

" for now naruto your physical training will be suspended until after the graduation exam. You will take these remaining few days to heal and meditate. If you can get into the genin real before the exam, fine and good. That would mean any other test would be just a formality. You are very close anyway you just need a little push."

Naruto did not have the strength to say anything, so he just gave a little nod. Jiraiya supported him on his shoulders and left the clearing where they had been training since the early hours of the morning, with the place looking at untouched as it was before naruto and his teacher arrived. Which was surprising, with how chaotic their sparring was there should have at least been a grass out of place. But everything was tranquil. In retrospect it was strange.

Naruto moved his aching body down the market square as sura ran around him in exited circles happy to be out of the house. Jiraiya was now leaving with them, and currently there were the only residents in the six floor apartment complex that they all lived in, smack dab in the middle of konoha's slums. Jiraiya obtained the deed for the complex, somehow. And then he completely refurbished and renovated the whole place. He turned the fifth and six floors into a huge training area. While the others became residents, except for the second floor which became jiraiya's office and the one place in the whole complex naruto lets him indulge in his rather loud extracurricular activities. Not to mention right across the street from them was a bustling brothel. All in all a perfect hideout for jiraiya of the sannin.

At first living in a larger building was really great, considering naruto now had an easy life, except of course when jiraiya decides to train him until he was just a step away from deaths door. He was happy, and for the past month or so he wondered if being with jiraiya was like having parents. He wasn't sure he knew what having parents were like. But he was happy with how much jiraiya took care of him. Though the person who benefited the most was sura, the larger space and an unending streams of chew toys made the little dralion constantly happy and out of mischief. Yesterday he fed her with the cores of the demonic beast he found dead the day her mother entrusted sura to him. It seemed as that was the right thing to do as sura became stronger and faster, in just one night. She was still riding the high from eating those cores which was why she was so excited this morning. Jiraiya had told him, that the way demonic and holy beast survive in the wilds was by preying on each other. The cores left behind acts as a battery for a beast. It stores whatever energy that is unique to that beast and powers their abilities. It is never empty, instead it evolves continuously gaining the ability to store more energy with better qualities. The only down side to their uses was that, more often than not, the body of the beast will be unable to keep up with the cores, therefore they were not able to bring forth the full potential of the cores. When forgers obtain beast cores however, they can smelt it, adding it during the forging of weapons and powerful artifacts. It gives the forged item more power and a constant stream of power. Cores are separated by grades, the same grade used to define the strength of a beast demonic and holy alike. It has thirteen grades, at least that's the known number on the elemental nations. Outside of this continent of out of this world it might be different.

Naruto was so lost in his thoughts, he did not notice when he bumped into someone in front of him, and due to the fact that he had been on high alert and tense due to the constant life and death training with jiraiya, he reacted by tossing the person over his head, still keeping contact and using the inertia and pull of gravity he added more force bringing the person crashing to the ground hard. A Kurai suddenly appeared in his hand as he brought it straight down heading for the persons eyeball.

A dainty and fair skinned hand rose up and stopped the Kurai from its descent. It was only then naruto came out of his tense mindset and looked at the person whose life he almost ended due to his ignorance and sudden actions. He was about to open his mouth and apologize but nothing came out. Pure white eyes were staring at him in apparent confusion, it was a girl, a blind girl a little older than him considering she was quite tall. He almost killed a blind girl, a stray thought of naruto announced. But at that moment something else had his attention.

She was beautiful, unlike any other girl he has ever known. Not that he knew many girls, but the few he knew of all of them non could compare to sight before him. Not even Sakura who he always believed the sun and moon rose at her behest could compare. Her pure white eyes had pupils actually, but there were so tiny you needed to be in close proximity to see them. The distance between their faces was the size of a palm, he could hear her breathing could smell her breathing. And the only thing he could think of was that she smelled like sunshine. Her hair a striking violet blue that was bound to leave an impression on all who saw it was spread on the ground beneath her. Coupled with the innocent expression on her face, dare he say it…she looked so damn fuckable. In the back of his mind he could hear Kurama screaming at jiraiya for tainting his protégé. Of course Naruto had no idea what a protégé meant. Her lips were so close and so red, a sharp contrast to the snow white skin she had. Where her hand stopped his, with the Kurai still in it he felt an overwhelming heat, not unpleasant but relaxing. He had this overwhelming urge to just lean down and kiss her, and he was going to do it too, until he heard the sound of her voice.

" are you going to keep on staring, or do you want take advantage of me in public. Also why are you trying to kill me?"

Her voice was like ice, cold, emotionless. Somehow naruto could not help but muse of how muse of how much her voice fit her look. He was about to answer when sura suddenly pushed her face between them and proceeded to give the mystery girl a big lick on her face. Naruto was horrified as he quickly stood up, dragging the girl up with him.

" sura what is wrong with you? Are you trying to pass on your germs and get her sick?"

And sura never one to back down for a fight, started yowling and growling at him as if she was defending her actions and reprimanding him for his own short comings.

" between her germs and you trying to kill me I think I know which one I would rather choose.

Naruto's face was flush with embarrassment as he quickly stored away the Kunai and looked at his feet like a kid who was stealing candy.

" am sorry it was an accident, I have been on alert because of my training, and I was surprised. But I promise you I would have stopped, really I would never have hurt you."

" somehow I doubt that." she replied.

And somehow naruto believed her.

" You must have a really good teacher, what's his name? Because quite honestly not many people in the genin realm can catch me of guard like that, it was quite the wake up call."

Of course naruto the idiot, that he was, was completely smitten by this girls beauty, add to the fact that she had complimented him, even though her tone was condescending. He quite happily blabbed to her who his teacher was. When he was under express orders to keep the status of their relationship as master and apprentice secret.

" so your master is jiraiya of the sannin, no wonder your skills are that good. It is to be expected."

Naruto was speechless, the way this girl talked, and carried herself was so reserved and polished she seemed almost like the imperial princess of the fire nation. Of course he had never met the princess, but this girl was the closest thing to nobility he had ever experienced, apart from Sasuke Uchiha.

"What's your name, young man?"

At fist the only thought naruto had was seriously, it was quite clear that this girl was not that much older than him, yet she is acting like she is decades older than him. But still naruto was still caught in the throes of her charm and sophisticated looks, giving up another important information again.

" my name is naruto uzumaki."

She raised an eyebrow in surprise.

" any relationship with the Uzumaki clan"

" no" naruto quickly replied.

" I just happen to have the same name as them, people always make that mistake anytime I tell them my name for the first time."

She gave him a look that said she did not believe one word of what he just said.

" hmmm. Anyway you have to make it up to me for almost taking my life, I take it you are quite familiar with Konoha city?"

" yes, I am."

" good, then you wouldn't have any problem acting as guide for me would you? Also bring the dralion she's just an adorable little thing."

With her piece said she bent down and lovingly petted sura like they had been friends for a very long time. And the traitorous little beast was actually purring and rolling on the ground in delight and joy, it was a peculiar sight.

Naruto spent the whole day with the girl, it was quite obvious to him that she was lonely. Naruto might have been just a kid but his circumstances had prompted him to grow up earlier, so he was able to see the world in a different spectrum from other people. But even them he was able to watch be a little happy. Every time he showed her something peculiar about the city, told a funny joke or in the moments when sura did something incredibly funny, he would see a trace of a smile and on time it was full blown laughter. Naruto has never seen a sight more beautiful, of course most of the time he spent with her, he was indulging in his rather growing devices. Taking regular peeks at her breast and butt. It was safe to say naruto has been lost to the demon that is jiraiya and his ways becoming similar to his godfather. When they parted ways, he realized with all the walking around and sneak peaks he never asked her what her name was. And she never offered it. it made him realize that throughout this whole adventure she had been in control and was quite aware of all the little advantages he had been taking. For some reason he felt a shiver go down his spine, it was quite obvious this girl was lot more dangerous than she seemed. In his mind she did not just become a thing to be admired but an entity to also be feared.

The genin realm was a very elusive acquisition. To step into there are multiple factors involved. Naruto was currently sitting in a sealing array that amplified the density of chakra in the training room, by constantly absorbing huge amounts of chakra and releasing it in a steady stream. Though this sealing array was very advanced, it did not last. After a duration of two hours it will be unable sustain itself anymore, at that point it needed as much as an hour for the array to be back in working condition.

One of the factors of entering the genin realm is talent. No just anybody can get into the genin realm, your mind had to be built for it, along with your body. Entering the genin realm was not something strength could do for you, you need sufficient insights on the flow of chakra. There are three principle pillars of the genin realm, a persons capabilities and effectiveness depends on this pillars. First is the chakra pathways, the chakra pathways are the highway in a person's body that directs the flow of chakra. Its size determines the amount you can use and the speed at which you can use it. People with little chakra pathways will find advancing to the next realm very difficult, thereby having a slow progress on their cultivation path. Medium sized gives and average ability and speed, this comprises of most of all the martial artist. With average ability they can still reach the pinnacle of strength but at a rather steady pace. People like this usually needs thirty to fourth years to get to the kages realm. On the elemental nations the average life span of a normal person is about a hundred years, for ninjas in the genin realm due to the nourishment of chakra about a hundred and fifty. People in the specialized realm of chunin have about a hundred and eighty, while the jonin boast of a hefty two hundred and fifty. The kage realm expert gain five hundred. And the sage seven to eight hundred years. The only exception are the uzumaki's, whose average lifespan for a normal person was two hundred years, twice that of a normal person. Their sages live to as high as one and half thousand years. And if a person successfully crosses over from the mortal realms to the immortal realms, their life spans are said to be infinite, of course they can still be killed. Because no one is ever truly immortal. Besides no one ninja ever lives beyond the age of seventy, or at best a hundred and fifty due to high death rates of their profession.

This brings us to the second pillar, the meridians. The meridians are like the nozzle of a tap, while the pathways are like the hose connected to it. And just like the pathways size is a factor for this pillar, running on the same principle as the pathways. If a person is discovered with both large pathways and large meridian channels. Such a person can only be described as a prodigy among prodigy, due to their monstrous image talent. But for meridians quality is also required. Meridians differ from person to person, while all the meridian channels are in the same place in everybody's body, there are types of meridians. Some have elemental nature meridians, some have extreme yang or yin meridians which often than not is very dangerous for the user. Your type of meridian also determine the aspect or the attributes of a ninja you are truly good at.

And finally the final pillar, the pressure/accupoints. This pillar is different as it strengthens the vitality of a person. The accupoints are all nerve endings with specific purposes in the body, they serve to protect from any potential danger from the chakra a person absorbs, and also serve as a direct channel to nourishing mental energy. There are many accupoints in the body, with as high as fifty, with a few hidden not yet discovered. A normal person can be born with seven open accupoints, with enough training he can get to as high as fifteen. And exceptional person can be born with ten or higher and with training can get as much as twenty two accupoints open. The uzumaki clan members are born with nineteen, no more no less and can train to as high as thirty. It's the reason why they are able to live as long as they can.

Naruto started some breathing exercise, meditating and trying to achieve a tranquil mind. Apart from talent a person has to be able to sense chakra. Luckily for naruto that was something he discovered he could already do, almost subconsciously in fact. Jiraiya says he has a very high mental fortitude giving him sensor abilities. Which jiraiya says is a very powerful ability since sensors can fight anywhere and in any situation, people like them can't be trapped ,lost, or blinded in a fight.

With his ability to sense chakra all naruto needed was to be able to absorb and channel it. As soon as he is able to absorbed chakra through his meridian channels and through his chakra pathways, in a complete circuit. Then his pathways will be activated allowing his body to undergo changes that would put him solidly in the genin realm.

Naruto could feel all the chakra that has been rapidly accumulated by the seal array, he felt the electrifying feeling of energy caressing his skin. It was like having something you want so bad right in front of you, yet you are unable to touch it. But naruto was not deterred he kept on meditating willing his body to draw in the energy of chakra. On the human body there are three hundred and sixty meridian points and channels, right now the first of this meridian points located at the center of Naruto's left palm was undergoing a qualitative change, it began to spin, of in all honesty it gave off a vibration that to the naked eye would seem like spinning. All of a sudden its counterpart on naruto's right palm began the same movement and soon it spread to the meridian points of each fingers. As soon as that was completed the same phenomenon began with his feet, completing the same movements as his hands.

That was when naruto felt it, a trickle of chakra so miniscule it could be brush apart as nothing, but naruto felt its power. This was not a tiny stream but a highly clustered and high density stream of chakra. Not all meridians are large or small, of the 360 meridian points their sizes will differ. The meridian channels on Naruto's hands could be considered average size, but what naruto was looking for was quality and not quantity. His meridian points began to open rapidly from all over his body, causing his body to begin vibrating in tandem with his meridians. And it went like this for twelve whole hour, Not once did Naruto move, not once did he complain. The seal array had gone on and off so many times Naruto had lost count, finally it was the two final meridian points lefts. The hardest of them all, this two points were know as the meridians of life and death, because they were actually placed on the pressure point of life and death, earning them the same name. Entering the genin realm was almost without dangers, but no path on the elemental nations was meant to be easily followed. So while a lot of people made it to the genin realm, there were some unlucky few, who either lost their lives when activating the death and life points, while some others completely destroys their ability to use chakra for the rest of their life.

Naruto could feel a slew of peculiar heat waves from his forehead and his throat, he felt the life and death meridians begin to vibrate as they slowly activated. All of a sudden Naruto felt a sudden rush of chakra, the chakra in his body which had been his t a trickle was now a raging storm. He was rapidly absorbing chakra and circulating it around it his body, only for them to also escape through the other meridian points in his body. A raging storm of chakra could be seen in the training room, as all the chakra was being sucked into naruto's body in an extremely rapid way.

Jiraiya quickly came down in shock as he saw naruto sitting down right in the middle of a chakra storm. There was no denying that naruto had already entered the genin realm. But the amount of chakra he was absorbing was just insane. There was more chakra than even when a jonin wanted to fight. This kid was every bit a tank just like all uzumaki's, no in fact he might be even worse, this amount of chakra was totally unreal.

Naruto felt the heat rushing all over his body as he experienced one of the most comfortable feelings he had ever experienced in his life. He could feel the chakra beginning to take root in his body. He could feel it seep into his bones, his blood stream, his organs and every path of his internal and external body. It was like having ones own body reformed and remade from an ordinary body to a body made specifically for the use of chakra. Naruto felt stronger, and faster. Even his mind was a whole level sharper than before as he could process, sight, sound, smell, taste and thought at an entirely different level. Naruto felt like a new born baby with a heavy doze of baby alcohol. Assuming of course that such a thing exist. Now it was up to him to stabilize his cultivation base. He was not now in the initial genin stage of the genin realm. Being in this stage as its name implies is just the initial stage and its main buffs were the fact that it would strengthen the body, and prepare it for the use of chakra techniques and jutsu. Finally naruto opened his eyes, exhaling a wave of impure air from his body. He could see jiraiya's gaping face looking wholeheartedly at him as if he had seen a monster of some sort. Naruto looked around himself and quickly touched his body to see if there was anything wrong with him. Finding nothing he quickly got annoyed with jiraiya for making him worried.

" what?"

His question served to bring jiraiya out of his stupid looking bewildered look. Jiraiya quickly cleared his throat in an attempt to save whatever was left of his dignity.

" I see you have entered the genin realm."

" duh!"

" don't use that tone with me young man, I am still your awesome master."

" well awesome master, why state the obvious, no body in this room is stupid."

Jiraiya knew naruto was purposely trying to push his buttons, of course such a thing was not supposed to get to him, but naruto also had this uncanny ability to make people irritated beyond all reasoning. Jiraiya took a few deep breaths as he tried to stabilize his rising anger before he did something like stuffing the brat in a barrel of alcohol or aphrodisiac.

" naruto I need you to perform the dance of Summer for me. It's a self absorbing chakra fighting style so all you need to do is demonstrate and not actively focus channeling chakra. The technique will handle that."

From jiraiya's tone naruto knew the time for jokes were over, an even though he was feeling sore from the position he had to maintain for hours in other to enter the genin realm. Naruto began to move, demonstrating the lazy hard strikes of the summer dance, his form was perfect and soon enough the chakra in the room began moving in tandem with his moves. Every where his fist went trailing blue streaks of chakra along with it, the wind went along. His movements were faster and his hits were harder.

From jiraiya's perspective they was almost zero to no mistakes, bringing naruto's mastery to almost ninth percent. Now all he needed was experience using the technique and to get used to the chakra flow of the technique. Mastering a foundation martial arts in a month, the martial art that numerous taijutsu techniques were made from. This made naruto more than a genius or a prodigy, in fact he was just a monster.

This also brings a conundrum for jiraiya. With naruto's ability to now use chakra jiraiya had to figure out the perfect congratulatory technique to teach him. Well naruto pretty much had his hand to hand skills down. As for weapons that would be a little in the future, the best thing now was to teach him a support move that can either help him escape, or defend, or attack, or scout, or…jiraiya had to stop because that was a lot of or.

" Say naruto have you ever heard of the shadow clone jutsu?"

" No, but I have heard of the clone jutsu, its actually a complementary move taught to all students who reach the genin realm before graduation."

" well the shadow clone is different, from the normal clone technique. Why?, well I tell you why. Because it a B class forbidden kinjutsu that even people in the jonin realm find difficult to use. But it is just perfect for you and your unruly chakra. You have just a few days to the genin exam, so there is no time for me to teach you any chakra control and regulating exercises. So the shadow clone technique is something nice to add to your arsenal, as this ability will support you, for the whole of your ninja career."

Naruto's mouth made a cute little O of bewilderment that almost tempted to jiraiya to pinch his cheeks. But of course jiraiya would never do such a thing considering how unmanly and how much of a swag killer pinching the brats cheek will be, what even gave him the idea of pinching naruto's checks as if he was some sort of old and wrinkled lady. Jiraiya repressed a shudder of revulsion.

" naruto the shadow clone technique, creates perfect living copies of you, with all your skills except its not very durable and needs a lot of chakra to maintain. In essence you are making clones of yourself, catch my drift?"

Naruto looked at jiraiya with a deadpan expression completely misunderstanding what jiraiya meant due to a proper lack of information.

" duh, it's a clone technique what is so special that I had to catch your drift."

Jiraiya had the overwhelming urge to suddenly slap himself in the face, but he held on…barely.

" the shadow clone jutsu has the ability to make perfect physical copies of you, with their own chakra, your skills, and your consciousness. Gaining the ability to think and act like you. In other words its like looking in the mirror and seeing and doing as exactly you would do.

" oh so that's how it is. OK I tally catch your quote drift."

" well no time to play, let me give you the hand signs, pay close attention to my movements and observe my chakra flow based o the air currents."

Naruto nodded and got to work. One thing jiraiya has always been impressed with since naruto became his apprentice was his unwavering determination, and now seeing how hard naruto was training, he knew in a few days he will shock all the young genins and their parents, even the old monkey would be shocked. He could almost imagine the looks on their face, jiraiya had created a monster, and in a few days, he would unleash that monster on the blissfully ignorant denizens of the elemental nation. Jiraiya had an overwhelming urge to cackle like a mad scientists. This time he gave in and scared sura who was running the training room.

" its time!".

 **A.N please readers review, I need the feedback and I would appreciate any suggestions that can help me improve my story. Currently all I do is write as it comes. I Am bound to run out of juice eventually. Anyway guys thanks for reading till next time.**


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX**

 **GENIN REALM 2: THE GRADUATION EXAM**

The academy was packed this morning, there were students and their parents, students and siblings or some other important member of their family. Then there was the older generation of genins, coupled with a few Chunins and jonins all here to see the next batch of konoha's future defenders. Naruto looked a lot different than normal. He was wearing weighted black camo pants, along with some steel lined ninja footwear. He had on a complete black jacket with the Uzumaki symbol stitched on its back, and unfortunately this jacket was also weighted. The jacket had orang highlight on its arms and the edge of its collar, and the uzumaki symbol was a vibrant red on it. Underneath the jacket he had on a black mesh high grade shirt. And then to top it off he had his trusty goggles on his head.

To sum it all up Naruto looked like how Sasuke uchiha would on a good day, of course he was rocking the bad boy look. The only downside was that it brought him attention he was not used too. All of naruto's classmates were surprised to see him, because he had disappeared for four months, and he only just came back. The only people who had any idea where he was, were his two friends Shikamaru and Kiba and their class teacher Iruka, who after noticing naruto missing for a few days went looking for him. When he found out that naruto was undergoing special training with jiraiya, he handed naruto an indefinite leave of absence.

This four months had done wonders for the once scrawny and malnourished kid. Naruto looked nine even though he was twelve, but with jiraiya's care he had filled out, and grown taller. He was still a head shorter than his classmates, but it was only a matter of time before he caught up and even surpassed the others. According to jiraiya he had his father's facial genes, but for body structure he was completely his mother's. His mother had been shortest person in the entire class, when she was his age. Of course it was only a matter of time before she caught up and was taller and more intimidating than anyone else.

The graduation exam was divided into, three parts. The first was a two hour written test, of course the credits for that was almost negligible but it was an important factor for the genins. The second was a weapons demonstration test, this tested their accuracy and speed. The normal weapons are the Kunai and shurikens used by ninjas worldwide but special weapons mastery can earn a student extra credits. Last is a combat test divided into two. First all students will fight one of the academy instructor for five minutes, where dodge rate, parries, and hits along with technique and flow are taking into consideration. The fifteen students with the best score will be moved to the second part, where seven students fight each other and the best in the class automatically qualifies for the next round. When that is done they will be left with eight people, then four, then finally the two best will go at each other for top of the class. Of course their results from the other exam will also determine the final victor regardless of who won the fight.

The students all piled into the school for the written exams while their supporters made their way to the arena behind the school where the remaining two exams will be held. The atmosphere was a little tense but the excitement in some of the students was a little palpable. The sitting arrangement was shuffled much to the chagrin of Kiba, to prevent friends from helping each other.

Naruto was sitting right beside the most intelligent girl in the academy, Sakura haruno. His relationship with her was so so, once upon a time he had fervently chased after her in the hope that she would become his girlfriend. Now naruto saw he was hopelessly childish and stupid then. More often than not he would end up with a bruised body at other times when he was a little lucky he could escape with just her yelling at him. But naruto had been exposed to a beauty that was on a whole other level than Sakura. And due to that he currently found it very hard to dredge up any of his former preteen love.

And just as naruto observed Sakura, so was he observed. But this time by the whole class. It was no longer a secret that naruto was now the apprentice of the legendary jiraiya of the sannin. Many of the students there muttered of how much of a lucky bastard he was to have such a legend for a master. Not to mention naruto had changed, he looked taller and less emaciated. His bronze skin had a healthy glow and his blue eyes had a new shine in them. Naruto was no longer the hungry bag of bones he once was, but a budding handsome young man who could pull off the badboy look as well as the prince of the uchiha clan Sasuke.

It was too much of change in just four months so it left a lot of people gaping in astonishment. Even their teacher Iruka, a man who had looked out for naruto time and time again and had taken it upon himself to visit his student during his four month training was surprised at this change. Naruto his himself well and proper and focused wholly on improving himself, Iruka wished to all things wish able that his favorite student will pass his exams, or at least make enough credits for him to be a probationary ninja for a few months till he improves more.

A sheet of paper, was placed in front of all students containing theoretical questions, moral questions and strategic questions concerning the ninja field of life. Most of this questions had textbook answers, while others depended solely and completely on a persons intellect and believe. Kiba let out a loud curse that had no place being in the mouth of a thirteen year old, not surprising enough Shikamaru followed right after. Kiba was not a stupid person, he might not exel in the areas of intellect but he was a damn good fighter and knew had to make the Right judgement call when the situation calls for it. So in a way he had at least seventy percent of talent in succeeding in his ninja career. Shikamaru on the other hand was just plane lazy, he was probably the only person in this class who would have a perfect score. The only thing he was bummed out about was how much brain power he was required to use to solve the questions which for some reason was really hard. The credits from this exam was small to the point of being negligible. Only twelve percent of persons total scores came from the written test, and for something so small, the test was really hard. The sharp voice of their teacher drowned all the chatter that had sprung up in the exam hall.

" Alright students, you have two hours to answer all questions on your exam, after that regardless if you are finished or not, you will submit your papers. Good luck children may your will of fire make a way for you."

And with that charge they all fell into the exam, concentrating and giving their all, the pass rate for the exam was sixty five percent at minimum, anything below that and you would find yourself a probationary ninja doing domestic chores until you a strong enough to take the make up test two months later. While that was not much time to be worried about, the students who end up on probation will have to deal with the shame of being weaker or less intelligent than their mates who passed. So while the credits for this exam was small, every mark counted.

The hokage of Konoha smoked his pipe at a leisurely pace, his city was experiencing a moment of supreme peace, after the disaster and annihilation they faced and survived thirteen years ago. A lot of sacrifices were made, but they had paved a way for the future generations. He was looking through his spy glass at the new batch of soon to be ninjas who were currently taking their exam. A new batch of children he was probably sending to their deaths. Of all the people who graduate seventy percent of them won't live to see forty. And while their lands were peaceful, danger lurked everywhere and in complete abundance. If it was not from the enemies within and outside the border of the fire nation, then it would be from the myriad of demonic and holy beast that roam the continent. To be a ninja meant you had to sleep, live and dream hand in hand with death. And such odds broke Hiruzen's heart. He had buried countless children in front of their parents, ended countless legacies due to orders he gave. And he would do many more, because while he was old and had lived a long life, he was no where near the end if his life.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was and still is a hard man. But at the same time he had a heart so compassionate it was a wonder to most people how he had held on to Hokage's seat for so long. Because even in Konoha and the rest of the world the battle for power was ruthless and unforgiving. Hiruzen holds his power mainly because of the love his people have for him, but he equally had a huge amount of enemies who would do anything to see him fall. Some of them from his very own council, but Hiruzen is know as the professor, a person whose prowess as a ninja was so insanely strong a sneeze from him could end an army of a thousand jonins in seconds. Kind… yes but this was a man who would never shy away from killing to protect what was his. His hand were stained with blood. Innocent and guilty alike. Some he has regretted and it will hunt him for the rest of his extremely long life. But he would never change anything.

" Jiraiya how many times have I told you to use the door, it is unbecoming of a sage to use a window like a common thief."

" Sensei, its shorter, and I am used to it. Besides unless you want that sexy secretary of yours to bear my illegitimate child, I have to stay far away. Because honestly she is a fine piece of ass."

" as usual your use of such vulgar words makes me worry for you sanity, sometimes I wonder if I did not train you well and other times I think you just an insecure and abnormal boy."

Hiruzen spoke all this with an even tone as he leisurely smoked his pipe. Jiraiya on the other hand was suddenly gloomy from his teacher's description of him.

" I am not gloomy sensei, and I am most definitely not a boy!"

Hiruzen gave a shake of his head and sighed. He looked up at his ceiling as if to say 'what am I going to do with this not'. But regardless it would be better for everyone if he quickly got rid of jiraiya, or else he might loose some brain cells bantering with the strongest soldier Konoha had to offer, apart from him of course or maybe that crook danzo.

" what do want jiraiya, as you can see I am busy."

" oh yea, doing what? All you are doing is smoking and is that my books on your desk? I can see how busy you are."

Hiruzen did not say anything, opting instead to stare coolly at jiraiya, a move that has never failed to make him feel uncomfortable ever since Hiruzen started training him, when he was a child.

" I have decided to take on an apprentice."

Hiruzen suddenly became subjected to a coughing fit, as the shock from jiraiya's proclamation sank in. Hiruzen had trained three sages in his lifetime, when looking at the book of record for teacher, if such a thing ever existed, he was number one and the absolute best. Of the three, one was a traitor and the most powerful poison expert and biologist of the elemental nations, with expertise ranging from plant form to the very cells that make a man. The second became the greatest combat medic, unrivaled in the art of healing and quite literally the strongest person in the world. And the third jiraiya, master spy and a jack of all trades. But also a pioneering master of the sealing arts and known to only two people secret master of the most dangerous sword technique on the elemental nations.

" Why?, if I remember you have only trained one person your whole life. And you chose to do it outside of Konoha and her military influence. Why do you want a team now."

" sensei you are misunderstanding, I don't want team. I just want one person for an apprentice."

Hiruzen heard him loud and clear, but this was an opportunity he had to take advantage of. The only known apprentice of jiraiya died almost thirteen years ago protecting Konoha. And on that day hiruzen was subjected to a strength the likes he had never seen before. And the true origin of that strength was right in front of him.

Jiraiya wanted an apprentice …sure he can get one, but Hiruzen saw nothing stopping his student from having a full team, or a more unorthodox team.

" fine I can prepare an apprentice for you, but you have to do something for me."

" I already chose my apprentice, am just here to tell you who he his so that you can prepare for the political shit storm that's about to head your way. So what do you want?"

" you can have your apprentice jiraiya, but you will also train three special genins for Konoha. Two of them can strengthen konoha's standing with the capital considering that they are both children of the royal bloodlines. And the last is someone that can be considered to be a future pillar of Konoha. But am curious who this new apprentice of yours is. I heard some rumors for the past few months that you were training a street kid. While am not against helping the unfortunate boy am sure you could have done better training a more talented person."

Jiraiya did not need any extra baggage apart from Naruto. But he knew that the moment he mentioned taking an apprentice his former master will try to saddle the responsibility of training the next sannin of Konoha. So he came prepared to make a compromise, Naruto was not strong enough to protect himself yet, and jiraiya was not omnipresent, so he could never be always protecting the boy. So he needed the city for that. He planed on releasing the news of who Naruto's parents were, and while it would paint a huge target on Naruto's back, it was the only scenario he could think of that would make the boy train harder.

Naruto has been a hard worker so far, but people only grew stronger when there's pressure and danger. So putting Naruto in a situation where there's an aura of death around his head for maybe two or three years before he becomes strong enough to take control of the uzumaki clan was the only option left to jiraiya. Naruto will be protected, but that will not diminish the danger, it will only increase his efficiency. Naruto might hate him if he ever finds out, but it was all for the greater good.

" His name is Naruto uzumaki namikaze, and from his name you should know he is the son of Minato and Kushina, the son of the people who sacrificed their lives thirteen years ago protecting the only thing important to you."

Hiruzen's pipe fell from his lips clattering to the floor. With shock written all over his face, for the first time he wondered how competent of a leader he was if this boy grew under his nose without him knowing honestly it was embarrassing.

The written exam wrapped up after two hours to the sheer nervousness of a few students. Students which of course comprised of both Naruto and Kiba. They were not sure of their scores, but at least they could say they tried their best. Of their little group, Kiba was all brawn while Shikamaru was all brain, Naruto found himself in the middle but he hardly qualified as he was only a little bit better that Kiba in academics. But that did not change the fact that in that aspect of their schooling they had always been at the bottom of the class. They both excelled in physical activities with a love for pushing themselves to the limit of their capabilities and pushing past their limits. There were both a sucker for hard work but without proper incentives they almost never channeled that energy into intellect. They were good smart kids, but they were still dumb boys.

The aspiring ninjas all moved behind the school to the arena that had been erected for the sole purpose of public events. It was a little daunting for naruto considering how many people where here. He was not a stranger to being stared at by a lot of people. But today a lot of things were riding on his performance and for once he had no intention of drawing attention to himself, because such a thing will only put to much pressure on himself.

He swept his gaze around the crowd and spotted jiraiya with a big sign that had the words GO NARUTO. Kiba turned to naruto in surprise, but Naruto shook his head begging him not to ask a question. He knew later on this dog boy was going to make his life miserable not to mention the old idiot jiraiya just painted a huge target on his back.

He continued to sweep his gaze through the crowd in a manner of indifference. That is until he met her pale white eyes again. His heart jolted as he felt a wave of electricity race through his body. The first thing he thought of was 'what the hell was she doing here?'. Since he met her a few days ago, apart from preparing for his exam, he almost spent every waking hour thinking of her. He spent an entire day showing her around Konoha and it was one of the most satisfying things he had ever done.

She held his gaze for a few more moments, almost as if she had every intention of piercing down to the very depths of Naruto's soul. To the very essence that carries his spirit. Her eyes were intense and intimidating, it made Naruto acknowledge one fact though. She scared the living hell out of him. But that was not the worst part, this emotions she evoked in him, from fear, want, lust, strength. He loved every single one of them.

For a person like her, who shows zero to no emotions on her face, who keeps herself in a controlled environment and her environment in control. She made naruto feel a lot of things and an overwhelming urge to just submit himself body and soul to her whims.

Naruto quickly pulled his eyes away, he had a new impression of the mysterious girl, who he might add never offered her name. Naruto was sure she was an agent of Satan sent to torment and turn his mind to mush. He will make an effort to stay away from her, but Naruto for the life of him had no idea who Satan was.

The remaining students gathered around as they prepared themselves for the second part of the exam. The students went up in the order their names were called up, as they displayed the weapons techniques they had mastered. A ninja can have a career without ever touching a kitchen knife, but it was a military regulation that every ninja must have at least a basic mastery of any two weapons of their choice. For now though as genins all they had to worry about was a single weapon, at least until they got to the chunin realm.

Naruto like most of the other students were extremely proficient in the projectile and hand to hand weapons they were taught to use right from the day they stepped into the academy. Shurikens and kunai's all fall under the same set, so mastery of both was required for this exam.

Naruto had his own style if using them, since he had constantly practiced both weapons for hours upon hours, that he had become so familiar with them, he could cut the wings off a fly from ten meters away. And this was before he ever met jiraiya and became as strong as he was now. He shuddered to think what the results would be now that he could channel chakra. Since jiraiya did not have time to teach him a specialized weapon, he had to rely on his special mastery of the kunai and shurikens.

The first student called went up and displayed a startling ability to use a kusarigima in a fight. Naruto was awestruck, he had learnt the theory about other weapons from the academy and one the weapons that caught his attention was the kusarigima. The kunai mounted on a very long and thin chain boasted of a very good ranged attack, and was almost impossible to defend at in close quarters combat.

The student gave a good performance, and then the next was called up. And so it went, until Kiba was called, but Kiba did not have a specialized weapon, but he was able to show his proficiency with the basic weapons, out of every ten target he was able to hit five, an average result non the less, but one that was completely acceptable. Shikamaru was next, but he was a little to lazy, but regardless he was able to maintain the same score with Kiba. But it was still quiet obvious to the people around that he had not taken the exam seriously, because if he had, he would have gotten a better result. Of course his carefree attitude only served to anger the parents and students who found this part of the exam difficult to complete.

A few other students went by who naruto was a bit familiar with, there was the young clan heir of the Aburame clan, his performance only served to thoroughly freak Naruto out. And then there was Choji another friend of his, but they were not that close, Choji could only be found in a specialized circle of friends that Shikamaru and a royal princess in it.

The next person was Sasuke Uchiha, cold, ruthless and calculating. The perfect example of a Ninja. Sasuke is born from one of the four great emperor clans of the fire nation. In the capital city, there were four clans who were in charge of ruling the fire nation. Every generation, rules for a duration of thirty years before passing it on to the next clan.

All four clans include the Uchiha, the Hyuga, the Yamanaka, and yuki clan. The uchiha clan used to be a subsidiary clan of the uzumaki, then they were know as thirteen clans of the uzumaki, not until the uchiha thirst for power and their pride prompted them to leave in a bid to conquer the fire nation. It did not go as planed for them, as three other clans with equal power and even greater in some areas stood against the uchiha. The uchiha were very powerful since at that time they were at the peak of their power, wielding a legendary bloodline that gave them the power of the Gods. On more than one occasion the uchiha clan has been called the priest of the Gods due to their extensive bloodline abilities that could portray the destructive power of a Gods nature and abilities. Finally the uzumaki intervened, still stinging and angry with the pain of the uchiha betrayal, they were somehow able to keep a clear head. They brought peace and made the agreement of changing an emperor between the two clans, every thirty years. And also when the other four clans have each ruled in line for thirty years, the uzumaki would rule for another thirty, and then the circle is reset and everything starts allover.

The uchiha to this day never forgave the uzumaki for interfering with their senseless war. Because apart from being saved from destruction by the clan they betrayed and abandoned. Their ambitions of total power was completely suppressed, so they had to settle for less, and so it has been for years. Intact in eight years time the yuki will hand over power to the uzumaki clan, in the final reign of the monarch circle.

Sasuke made a perfect score, getting ten out of ten for all the moving targets. Four of his throws from his kunai were instant killing moves, while the remaining six were crippling moves. In a real fight it meant Sasuke would have tortured his enemies to death and made them incapable of defending themselves.

Next naruto went on, and for some reason there were a lot of eyes on him, it was honestly unsettling as it made him more conscious of his performance. The wooden dummy in front of him did not have a bulls eye like most other target practice equipment. What this had was a dummy whose whole body was highlighted to show places that can cause instant death or cripple a person in a fight.

Naruto first closed his eyes, in a fight this would have been incredibly stupid, but Naruto needed to forget everything around him, and focus on what was in front of him. He had armguards with the uzumaki spiral on it, but this guards were reinforced weighted and had a storage seal on it.

Naruto took a deep breath as he drew in chakra into his body, in a manner that was as easy a breathing. He felt the cool energy run through his body like the foray of a cool summer breeze. Everything stopped, time had no meaning and all worries were thrown out.

Naruto was in a state of mind which all gates had the ability of entering with ease, while normal people would spend years searching for it. Some people will call it a state of enlightenment, but Kurama who taught Naruto his to use it, calls it, the state of no earth, no universe, no me. You forget everything around you and become on with the very essence of creation, you become one with chaos.

Naruto's entire eyes became pitch black as he threw the shurikens in his hands forward in a movement so fast it left a lot of people blinking. Everyone was silent, the whole place was so hushed you could have heard a pin drop to the ground. Naruto missed three of the targets completely, but the other seven were spread out among four of the dummies. Three of them had the shurikens embedded on their four heads, one on top of the other. While the last one was lodged deep in another dummies throat. Killing moves and perfectly executed to ensure death.

Technically naruto had gotten only four of the dummies, and he had done so perfectly. Most of genin had not gotten to a stage where their chakra control will be enough to channel into their weapons to increase their performance. Even naruto had the most abysmal chakra control, but unlike his peers, Naruto could draw in and send out chakra in large quantities. It was one of the reasons his shurikens had such results burying their selves deep into the wooden dummies. But of course Naruto also had excellent aim. It became controversial on how to score naruto, so his results were pushed for later.

In a little under ten minutes all the genins had finished the weapons test, Naruto's scores were a little controversial since it was a case of quality over quantity. In the end quality won. The next step was the combat test, and the most important ones. Since the genins had not yet condensed a chakra core, they were limited in their abilities. Thus they could only learn fighting techniques and supplement their bodies with chakra to move faster and hit harder. The only thing the genius were currently capable of, was the three basic techniques of, transformation, replacement, and cloning. There had zero to no use in a fight apart from being escaping techniques. It made it the perfect skills for genins in case they meet an opponent they could not win against.

The instructor they were supposed to fight for the next test was a teacher called mizuki, he had silver white hair, and Naruto was under the impression that the guy looked like a spider. The students fighting were chosen at random, but somehow Sasuke uchiha had to go first. Which was no surprise to Naruto, Konoha had to show courtesy to the hair of the royal clan who could rule the fire nation as emperor in the next fifty or so years. If he lived that long, but it was well none if he lived past thirty he had fifty percent chance to reach seventy, and if he reached seventy he had an eighty percent chance to reach a hundred and twenty. And once he gets to the triple digits, his experience and battle prowess would be enough for him to have an extremely long life and if possible ascend to the higher planes.

Mizuki threw a rather careless punch at Sasuke, probably he did not want to hurt the prince. But Sasuke was a person of intense pride and contrary to what many of the male students believed he was not completely arrogant. He was someone who wanted to be respected for his own abilities, so when he saw mizuki taking him lightly and treating him like some sort of egg due to his status, Sasuke abandoned all forms of pretense and delivered a chakra enhanced punch straight to the nose of mizuki which sent him flying out of the sparring ring.

Needless to say mizuki got the message, and the disgrace to go with it. Sasuke was strong, but he was only a genin while mizuki was a specialized sensor chunin who had very good weapon and fighting techniques. In a nutshell it was far to early for Sasuke to defeat him. Sasuke was already at the advanced genin stage, all that was left was for him to take the step to be either a jonin, following a combat career, or a chunin, following a support career that almost always does not require a person to be in the front lines. Chunins are by no means weak, that could go toe to toe even with a kages due to their specialist profession, they might never advance out of that realm, but they are able to do things normal ninjas find difficult. Not to mention most of them were very capable combatants, it was into this category mizuki fell in.

He came back into the sparring ring, he gave Sasuke the come on sign, using his fingers to give Sasuke the motion to attack. To most it would seem he was still being arrogant and they could not wait for Sasuke to knock him on his ass again.

Sasuke took of with a running start, before he got to mizuki he jumped in the air and threw his legs out while holding his hands up like a bird. This move was called the butterfly sting, one of the contemporary stances in the dance of summer which portrayed the term float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. But mizuki was ready for him, at the apex of his jump a punch landed solidly on Sasuke's gut and he folded like a tin foil on the fist of mizuki. But he recovered quickly it was almost as if the punch did nothing to him. He jumped back still in contact with mizuki as he attempted to pull the teacher of balance. Mizuki lost his balance as predicted, but he was still prepared when Sasuke's legs sent both their soles to leave a red mark on his face. He blocked with his other hand as he moved back a few steps. Sasuke landed on the ground and quickly got up. This time mizuki decided to take the initiative and attack, Sasuke smirked as he changed his stance, putting one of his hand palm up facing mizuki as if he was begging, and his other hand was a fist clenched across his chest, his knees was slightly apart.

To experienced and knowledgeable eyes, they would all know that this was the **interception fist,** the personal fighting style of the uchiha clan, which was a by product of the **yin-yang circle** of the uzumaki clan. The **intercepting fist** was a very capable style that preached offense is the best defense, it redirects all the opponents attack, while at the same time attacking using the opponents same momentum and at the time when this skill is mastered, it could also use an opponents own chakra against him. With this technique Sasuke could at least catch up a little with mizuki's strength. Mizuki came up with a flurry of rapid fire kicks and punches, and out of ten sasuke intercepted five, reversed two and took three hits. The strength difference was still there, and it was quite enlightening for a lot of the genin and even their parents as they watched the rapid fire battle. It was also obvious that sasuke had been training with someone way stronger than him, which in turn had acclimated him with fighting opponents stronger than him and with unfavorable odds. In a nutshell he had received the same type of training naruto received from jiraiya, only his has been going on longer than Naruto. The bell rang signifying the end of the sparring match, it was no surprise everyone there thought sasuke had perfect marks, so he would probably escape the preliminary rounds between the other genin and go straight to the quarter final.

Every other student after sasuke could not perform as well or even awe the croud like Sasuke did. Of course on of the reasons was how intimidating Sasuke's performance had been, which was enough to discourage anybody but at the same time they wanted to look at their parents and guardians and see pride in their eyes. So they tried and made an effort. Kiba was probably did only person who got close enough to Sasuke's performance, followed by the class beauty Sakura and her princess friend Ino who had the same status as sasuke as a royal and then Shikamaru who did not throw a single hit, but was not hit either as he completely predicted everything mizuki was going to do and called it out before mizuki could do it, completely spoiling mizuki's combat ability and making a fool out of him. Of course what most people don't know was that like the uchiha with their sharingan the Nara clan also had a similar bloodline limit called **Miwakeru no shinzou( the discerning heart).** The Nara are known to rare a species of magic creatures called the woodland shadow deer. During the generations of taking care of them the genes had mixed with the Nara clan giving them good sensor abilities and an almost cheat like skill to predict the future or how a person was going to act based on his current actions. It made fighting a Nara frustrating since the Nara gene was also a gene of gross laziness and many times above average IQ they would usually always give a lecture instead of fighting. Many people gave them the nickname as a clan that could talk people to death. And poor mizuki the spider looking teacher had experienced the next generation of the Nara clan who continued their family tradition by passing this stage of the exam the same way his, father, grandfather, great grandfather and every other clan heir from the moment the **Miwakeru no shinzou** appeared in their genes.

Finally naruto was called up onto the stage, his fight was one a lot of people wanted to see, due to his performance from the weapons test. Naruto gave the customary bow of engagement to mizuki and put both his fist up in a boxing stance. It was the first stance of the summer stance and to all there it was perfectly executed. Mizuki gave a smirk of self confidence, after the embarrassment from sasuke he had decided to take every genin here seriously. Who knew who was a crouching tiger or hidden dragon among the genins. In other to avoid any unwanted surprises, especially since he did not want a repeat of either Sasuke's or Shikamaru's fight. He rushed at naruto who also rushed at him, when naruto was close enough he dropped to the ground to initiate a baseball slide, and as he was sliding he sent his feet to mizuki's shin, due to the suddenness of the move, mizuki was caught off guard and planted himself face first onto the polished marble platform. A satisfying crunch was heard, signifying that his nose had been broken.

But naruto did not stop there, he quickly took advantage of the mizuki who was still getting his bearing and was slowly getting up. He was on his hand and knees, when a shadow appeared above him, he only had time to acknowledge the shadow before he felt pressure and an intense driving force behind his neck that quickly drove him nose first once again onto the platform. And this time he felt a few teeth come loose due to how much force and inertia he received from Naruto's stomp.

Mizuki saw stars, and he was quickly becoming delirious due to the rapid Loss of blood from his nose. He quick got up on shaky legs to see Naruto running towards him, mizuki was not stupid enough to let naruto get close to him. Of all the genins he fought naruto was the only one who refused to fight head on or honorably going so far as to kick him when he was down. Mizuki threw a clumsy kick which naruto sidestepped, but mizuki quickly moved his leg and his knee connected to naruto with a satisfying crunch. Naruto was thrown to the ground and he rolled for a few meters before coming to a stop. It was obvious to everyone that mizuki used his full strength which was against the rules of the sparring match. He was allowed access to his skills and experience to use against the genins, but the one thing he had to regulate was his strength. Mizuki was on of the most capable teachers who had full control over their strength and for mizuki it was an important attribute considering he was a sensor.

Mizuki did not care what the people present had to say, but of all the genins he fought this little shit made him bleed and mizuki was one to return a favor. Naruto got up quickly, on the left side of his head blood could bee seen clotting on his golden blond hair as it equally flowed down the nape and side of his neck and down to his clothes.

Every parent there were objective to such a sight, naruto was a known prankster but he was someone Konoha tolerated due to how polite, kind and funny he was. Even though naruto was not friends with any of their children many of the parents there were familiar with Naruto. It did not take long for them to speak out, even mizuki was beginning to rethink his stance considering how much blood was coming out of naruto right now. But naruto surprised each and everyone of them as he took the initiative to attack mizuki, it seemed like he was initiating the butterfly sting, mizuki was prepared to counter, but naruto's legs quickly came together as he bended them at the knee. Mizuki ended up finding himself with naruto's knees under his jaw as gravity took over, not to mention naruto's hands were behind his head pulling him down. The impact of naruto hitting the ground reverberated as the impact broke mizuki's jaw. This move was a patented move naruto created after learning to wrestle from jiraiya, it had no fancible name so naruto called it a jaw breaker, and that was exactly what it did.

Mizuki quickly separated from naruto screaming in pain as his jaw was shattered in a few places, naruto's fight was not as fancy and eye catching as Sasuke's and the other students, what naruto did was look for the best and possible way to make mizuki hurt and incapacitate him quickly and efficiently. Naruto was completely ruthless, he did not treat this as a sparring match, instead this was a fight of life and death and he acted accordingly. With his actions he earned the respect of every ninja present there, even mizuki who was at the receiving end could only grudgingly accept naruto's capabilities and give the respect he deserves.

At that moment the bell rang signaling the end of the fight, thankfully naruto was the last person in line so there was no one else left for mizuki to test. Medic nine who were almost never needed during this part of the test for the first time had to patch a teacher and a student together with the teacher in worse shape than the student. Head wounds tend to bleed a lot, so naruto's injuries were not that serious. Genins were given an hour to rest and recuperate before the final bout, needless to say it was a much needed rest, especially since two or three of them would have to end up facing the monster that is naruto, looking at him with all the blood on his head, even his friends had to suppress a shiver of choking fear, needless to say they were not looking forward to it.

She had no intention of leaving the testing ground, but the spy she sent out had just returned, it seemed he had news for her, and while she had no intention of leaving her guards behind, she had to do this since the future of the fire nation was at stake.

" lady Hinata, I come bearing news if the investigation you wanted me to find out."

" then speak quickly I have no time to waste."

As usual her voice had little to no emotion in it, it was something she couldn't be bothered with, not with the position and power she carried. Things like emotion will only get in the way of rational decisions so she had to go through a lot to get rid of it."

" my lady the target was raised in the same orphanage as the yellow flash Minato namikaze, also according to the caretaker he was brought there on the night of the kyubi's attack by a red haired woman. All the legal documents from that time concerning the boy has all been destroyed and confiscated by jiraiya of the sannin a few months ago. And not just that, my lady three years after the incident the uchiha had come searching, and they were able to uncover the secret of the boys identity but kept it a secret. And not until a few months ago as well it seems the boy did not know whose son he is as well."

A lot of things had been put in perspective for Hinata, but she finds herself having more questions than answers, if the uchiha were able to find out who he was easily why didn't the uzumaki. Because technically Naruto is the one true heir of the clan and most definitely the next emperor of the fire nation. The uzumaki's had traitors in their midst, that much was known, but the uchiha also seem to have a hand in this, which shouldn't make sense, everyone was under the impression both clans were enemies. It seems not to be the case or at least not with every members.

" Itachi I need you to keep an eye on Naruto, also send a message to Karin and tell her everything you have told me, it will be good if she knows what she's dealing with. In fourteen months the chunin/genin nations tournament will begin and I am sure she would be coming to participate and also take her cousin home to his inheritance. If you find out that naruto is a pawn of the Uchiha kill him, but be careful of jiraiya. I rather he be dead than be used against us. He is the next emperor but we can't be to sure of his loyalty. In the meantime I will try to get close to him from this side, so we can both approach this from two directions, you from the shadows and me from the light. If we can draw him into our circle, maybe by implementing a marriage contract between me or hanabi since she is closer to his age. We need Naruto uzumaki in our pocket, but if drawing him in becomes to risky and counter productive, kill him and let the uchiha's take the throne. I rather face the devils I know than an angel I don't. Am sure Karin will understand, this is a game we have both been playing for a while. But just in case have shisui follow her. If it comes to the point of killing Naruto, have shisui kill her too. I rather cover all my bases and leave no room for retaliation. Your dismissed itachi."

" by your leave lady Hinata"

And then he disappeared in a flurry of crows. Itachi uchiha the missing eldest son of the uchiha family head and her personal henchman. This game just got more interesting with the addition of Naruto. Well it was now left to her opponents to make their own moves, no matter what she was ready. With that said she turned and headed back to the testing area, the one hour of rest was almost up so she had to be there to watch naruto.

But unknown to her a certain white haired pervert had watched her whole meeting from his vantage point on top of a tree right above her. A flurry of crows appeared beside him as the took the distinct shape of a man.

Itachi uchiha was a man of so little words, but he was one of the most dangerous spies jiraiya ever trained.

" master jiraiya I take it you headed everything."

" You are quite right about that itachi, and your mistress is a little ruthless for her age isn't she?"

" its how she was brought up jiraiya sama."

" non the less itachi do everything she asked you to do, except killing the boy, you do that forget even running I will wipe out you whole clan. Also tell Karin everything she said, everything word for word. She also needs to know the kind of Snake hinata hyuga is, the only thing that scares me is I have plans to marry my Godson to such a scheming snake among others. Anyway that will be all."

" yes jiraiya sama"

" oh and itachi, leak the information that naruto is a gate to the akatsuki, shake things up a bit, and get me tsunade and orochimarus locations."

Itachi gave a nod of his head as he disappeared with his signature crows. Things are about to become heated, naruto's strength was progressing way better than jiraiya envisioned. So due to that he can perfectly tell the hyuga princess **"GAME ON"**

AN: **hey guys, sorry this chapter took so long to release, but good news we are getting close to wrapping this arc up. Only I don't know what to do with the next one yet. So I might disappear for a month or so again. I also want to use this opportunity to thank all the people who have read, reviewed, favorited if that's a real word, and followed my fic. Your support no matter how little helps give me the right push to get off my ass and work. Thanks guys, but as usual review and any ideas for the story will be welcomed. Also how was this fight scenes? LIVE FREE EVERYONE AND DIE WELL**

 **PS PLEASE DON'T DIE.**


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN:**

 **THE GENIN EXAM: SPECIAL TEAM.**

 **Hidden room: Uzumaki clan house.**

Four women and seven men were seated around each other in a dimly lit room. For the moment they all just busied their selves with staring at each other, each lost in his or her own thoughts. There was a heavy pressure that seemed to weigh down on the shoulders of this almost ancient looking people. Each of this people led a particular faction of the uzumaki clan, each of this people had sins they would rather keep hidden, and each of this people had a lot to loose in anticipation of the coming storm that was Naruto uzumaki. The oldest looking person among them, a woman who looked to be in her eighties, but was probably in her fifth or sixth century decided to speak up.

" Elder Toshiba your spies were quite clear with their observation it seems. And in light of this new development we need to plan ahead. In our bid to consolidate the power of our various factions and put ourselves in a seat of power just like our once brothers the uchiha, we deprived a day old child of his parents, we deprived the uzumaki clan of its future matriarch, and even more worse we deprived the clan of its own sacred guardian." She paused for emphasis so as to let the weight of her words sink into her comrades.

" very soon the child whose parents blood is in our hands will be coming back to take what is rightfully his, and each and every one of us will have to bow to him, and even more so for my branch of the family. The Hatake clan have always been the personal guards and guardians of the head clan. This makes our betrayal worse and our punishment should he find out we are behind his parents death, ten times worse than anybody's here. So my fellow elders in this time of crisis my fellow elders, what do we do."

The polished floorboards at this side of the clan house gave subtle creaking sounds as her weary bones made small indentations on it. During her prime or even just ten years ago she would have been able to walk soundlessly on this floor boards without one hint of a sound. Being the matriarch of the Hatake clan was not easy, after the uchiha left they became the vanguards and personal shield of the main clan. A position of great power, or so it would seem to most, but to her grandmother it just meant they were second best, her grandmother was never happy with that, and she took that prejudice to her grave.

Now she was somebody else's grandmother, and unlike her own grandmother she had acted on her own shortcomings with the main clan and attempted to snuff them out. The overall headquarters of the Uzumaki clan was literally in another dimension, they were worlds apart, and while the main clan did put a lot of importance to the elemental nations she doubted the would have reacted much to the politics of this world. Every single one of the thirteen branches of the uzumaki clan on the elemental nations was an offshoot of their main counterparts on their home dimension, and just like it is here, his main clans also have their own political and civil unrest. The uzumaki when it comes down to it, will always support each other like family, but like any family there would always be disagreements.

She came across a room with a sliding door, she trembled as her aged hands moved the door aside. He was kneeling there as she expected, though he was chained like a dog, he was still kneeling there, waiting for death or a master and teacher hat would never return. It took a lot of effort on her part to not start crying. Seeing him like this had left her feeling a lot of emotions, from love, fear and the most predominant one self loathing.

Her own grandson, and she was a major part of the reason why he was heart broken and lost. He was filled with hate to the woman who loved and raised him without reservation. But she took something from him, she took someone important from him. Life was never easy and she knew she had a executioner's blade hanging over head, but this time she wanted to be selfish for the right reasons. Her time was soon coming to an end in this world, but what she wanted most right now was her grandson to love her again. For him to give that special smile he reserved for no one but her. She did not want her little boy to continue leaving this life where he is literally no different from a , she wanted him happy, she wanted him back to herself just like before. And besides if this works out, she could find herself wielding more power than anyone in this clan apart from that Karin girl.

" Kakashi wake up."

Of course she knew he was wide awake, both their senses were far to honed to perfection that even a master spy like jiraiya will find it extremely difficult to hide from them. But still he kept silent, refusing to speak to her, the same as it has always been for the past nine years, not a single word to her. But she wouldn't give up that easily, this time she was acting out of love and greed, it was a necessity and she had to cover tracks and save her ass from the coming shit storm.

" your master's son is alive Kakashi, and he needs you."

He raised his head sharply and she was treated to his two colored eyes, his left eye the piercing and would shaking black all Hatake members were known for. And his right the _**Mangekyo Sharingan**_ that was bequeathed to him by his mother. As proof of his mixed blood.

His gaze was unnerving and she knew he only needed a look to kill her, even now with those chains suppressing his chakra, f he wanted to kill her all he had to do was blink. But his eyes had questions, they had hope, and he needed her to say it again, to tell him what this all meant. Even if she locked him here, he knew for a fact that she would never play with his emotions like this, he knew just as much as the day knew the sun, that she loved him to much to lie to him. Her one weakness, a weakness Kakashi was never shy to exploit to get what he wanted from her, and this time was no different.

" Yes Kakashi, he is alive and his name is Naruto. He is currently in Konoha where he grew up an orphan under everybody's nose. But current information from my spies tells me that the uchiha may have know for a while, and as off two days ago they have placed a bounty of about two million gold on his head. Not to mention the clan leaders or at least the half of us responsible for the disaster thirteen years ago have sent a hit squad after him, by this time in four days he would be dead."

" let me out of here lady kiyo, please."

She felt a feeling reminiscent of someone tearing her heart out, when her own grandson called her lady kiyo with such a formal title. Once upon a time all he ever called her was grandmother, but now his tone was so bland and emotionless that she couldn't stop the tears from pouring from her eyes, strong as she was, in front of Kakashi it meant nothing. She had never hidden her true feelings for him and she never will. Kakashi saw her crying and she knew he was well aware that his simple way of addressing her hurt, but his expressions never changed, almost as if he didn't care.

" That's why I am here Sochi, I know you hate me now, but we need to look at the bigger picture. Our clan is on a decline and if we allow the assassins to succeed things might not end up well. Even if the main clan has been quiet from the death of kushina and disappearance of the Kyuubi, there's no telling what they would do if Naruto ends up dead. I made a lot of mistakes from a chronic sense of misdirection and I know eventually I have to pay for it. But this is my one chance to redeem our clan from destruction, our one chance to correct the horrible things we have done in the past. This is also my one chance to make reparations d atone for my sins. I want my grandson back, I want you to love me again. After sakumo died you are all I had left, and if one more day passes with you in torment and hating me, I just might die from a broken heart."

She placed her hands on his cheeks and raised his head up so that he could look straight at her, she moved his grime coated white locks and looked him straight in both eyes, in both soul crushing expanse of red and black pools of death, that were dropping tears as freely as the could see. Kiyo could hardly imagine the damage and heartbreak she had caused her grandson, she broke him but now she was going to do everything in her power to fic him.

" Go to Naruto, and keep him safe until he is ready to come home, jiraiya is also there so with the two of you your job will be easier. I will stay here and try to restore order and simultaneously sow chaos with the other six, so that when you bring him back things will be a lot easier for him to take control of. Please promise me you will look after yourself, if you are going to die wait for me to die first before you follow."

She saw a trace of a smile on his lips before he nodded his head in agreement. She applied cold yin chakra to the chains as they fell of from him. She could feel him rapidly accumulating, producing and absorbing chakra as soon as he became unrestricted, his red eyes twisted and formed into the final form of the **Sharingan, the ultimate Mangekyo sharingan**. He stood to his full height, towering over her old and diminutive form, for a moment she feared he would kill her, but then he bowed is head at the waist, bringing his head down to her chest. He was asking for her blessing and she gave it wholeheartedly. She was not stupid enough to think that all was forgiven, no not at all, her baby was just being respectful and grateful. Maybe in time they might be able to mend their relationship to a certain extent, but not completely.

" now go and be safe."

And just like that he disappeared, leaving a flurry of leaves behind him. And for the first time in a few years she was sure she could get at least five hours of sleep before the nightmares begin to plague her again. Well now it could be properly said the war has started properly on the uzumaki front. Now its up to the next player to make their moves.

The rest if the exam was canceled, well for three students that is. Naruto, Sasuke and a girl who Naruto has practically had zero contact with Ino Yamanaka, were all called to the Hokage's office. It was a surreal experience for naruto, I mean who wouldn't be excited when you meet the leader of your city and the military capital of an empire for the first time.

Hiruzen Sarutobi looked very old, but he still looked younger than his almost five hundred centuries, and for more than half of that time, he has been leading Konoha steadily and through a lot of good times and bad times. To Naruto this was the true image of a powerful leader, old and wise and strong with lots of grey hair and a big beard. Naruto wanted to be like him in the future, to be a leader, a person people will look up to and pioneer in a new age of martial excellence where peace reigned. Naruto knew he was naïve, his dreams would not survive, not in this brutal world where the strong decide the lives of the weak, and no matter how one can claim to be a great leader, without strength a person is nothing. And what he has been fortunate to learn from jiraiya, which his godfather coined the five rules of life, rule number three states that when you have strength, when you have achieved true power, things like good or bad no longer applies to you, you make your own rules and the people weaker than you will have no choice but to bend to your will.

The door to the Hokage's office opened again, and this time Naruto felt his breath come to a screeching halt. It was the blue haired girl he met the other day, and she was being escorted into the Hokage's office by two guards who looked just like her, well not exactly. They the same waist long hair though theirs was brown and silky black each, and then they had the eyes, jiraiya had called it the **Byakugan** , and it was the bloodline limit of the hyuga royal family. She pretended he did not exist and took a seat beside Sasuke her cold expression unchanging and unbroken.

She was intimidating and a source of endless fascination for Naruto, at this point in time it is quite clear that Naruto had a crush, and it was something that quite frankly will only end in disaster if the young man does not stop staring at her like she was the last female on earth.

" Your Highnesses I bid you all a good afternoon, I hope you have been having an enjoyable day."

No one said anything, for the three others apart from Naruto this was something they were used to, people in positions giving them respect because of their status. But for Naruto he was quite aware that the hokage was kissing their ass, Naruto might be a little dense but he wasn't stupid. Hiruzen was a renowned shinobi, but when it comes to the royal clans he had to bow his head, because quite frankly each of this family have ninjas and warriors of the Hokage's caliber, they had power and because of that power, a five hundred year old man has to boy his head to children who have not even reached their second decade. For naruto this was a constant lesson, the world wasn't fair, and contrary to all his big dreams and hopes not everything was sunshine and rainbows, power dictates, power rules, power saves, power makes you a God.

" I am sorry for stopping the rest of the exam, but quite frankly non of you need to prove anything anymore. And in order to make the whole thing fair for the civilians I had to pull you guys out. I ask for your humble forgiveness and hope you are not to offended."

This time it was Sasuke who replied.

" it is to be expected hokage sama, we are people of repute and great standing it is quite an honor that you give us as much respect as you do. It is quite humbling. But I do not understand why this peasant no name orphan is here."

Jiraiya who was standing behind the hokage had his eyes narrowed to a point, even Hinata had to raise an eyebrow. It was quite clear to everyone who Naruto is, even more so when they all knew the uchiha had known for years longer than anyone else. Sasuke ever since he was sent here to be fostered and serve in fire nations own military capital has had an ever growing animosity with Naruto, those who knew him, would know that Sasuke was not an unreasonable person, actually he was arrogant, and egotistical, but he would never cause conflict with anyone for no reason at all. But it was quite clear he saw Naruto as a threat, and the poor naïve boy had danced to the uchiha's tune for a few years due to his lack of knowledge of who he is.

Naruto made to react as usual, to probably shout and maybe throw a few insults or two, but a sharp glare from jiraiya had him seal his mouth shut. Such an action was noticed by everyone leading them all to wonder how much power jiraiya had over the person who could potentially be the next emperor of the fire nation. They all broke into nervous sweats, jiraiya was not a person they could go up against both in prowess and influence. Jiraiya's web of influence was spread out everywhere all over the elemental nations, he was even more powerful than the current emperor, and if naruto had such a person guiding him, he was almost untouchable.

Hinata could not help but feel a shiver run down her spine, she had piloted to have him killed if things did not go her way, she knew how powerful jiraiya was, but not how close he was with Naruto. Because quite frankly even if Naruto lives or dies it would hold no consequence to jiraiya or his power. But from that look alone it was quite clear that Naruto was an investment of jiraiya, and if he is messed with, jiraiya was sure to retaliate with extreme prejudice.

" on the contrary young uchiha, Naruto here is the legitimate son of the previous clan head of the uzumaki clan. Kushina uzumaki and her husband Minato died here almost thirteen years ago defending Konoha from an attack from the nine tailed demon fox, the very celestial guardian of their clan, which I might add is now residing in young Naruto's body. These of course triples his value, he is more than just royalty now, he is also a gate. To put it simply if he was a no named peasant orphan like you said, then you will be no more than an ant to him."

Jiraiya excelled in such talks, it was quite clear that no one could give an explanation and at the same time give a threat while at the same time completely insulting a royal. The sage had made it clear that his investment was of limits, not to mention he is the vessel of the nine tailed demon fox.

It made them wary, but it did not stop them from chasing their own schemes, in fact it made them rethink their area of approach. For Sasuke getting in Naruto's good graces will be very hard but not impossible. The uchiha are master manipulators, and while Sasuke, Ino, and Hinata are not masters in that game, they know enough to fool and use Naruto enough without him knowing a single thing. He was still innocent, he was just like a ripe fruit ready for the picking, and jiraiya was the huge gorilla waiting underneath the tree to get the fruit, while the rest of them are all little monkeys hoping to get lucky and get a taste of the fruit. Jiraiya was scary but they would not give up, and this reveal has made Naruto the most wanted commodity in the elemental nations.

Naruto felt so self conscious he wished he could disappear, everyone was looking at him, and he might still be considered a child but he had lived on the streets long enough to recognize the looks of greed and ulterior motives on the eyes of everyone, including the hokage himself. The only exception was jiraiya, all his eyes showed was nothing, it was completely empty and devoid of any , or any indication that the bombshell he just dropped meant anything to him. In all honesty at that moment Naruto felt very afraid of the entity that was jiraiya nd he was not ashamed to admit it.

The hokage attempted to bring order back to the meeting as he cleared his throat rather loudly.

" well, that's that. Let us move on, I know you were all sent here to serve for a minimum of a year to a maximum of five years or until you get to the jonin realm, before you head back to the capital to become the respective heads of your clans. So in that period of time, it is up to Konoha to train you and make you into capable martial artist and leaders. So as of this moment on you four are the next generation of the sannin, and you all have the privilege of being selected as disciples of jiraiya of the sannin, which is a honor very much befitting of your status or even more so. So any objections?"

Objections…bullshit naruto doubted with the gleeful looks on the faces of the three that there would be any objections of any kind, and to be honest he found it extremely funny, what was so special about jiraiya anyway, sure he was a great teacher, but he is also extremely lecherous and perverted. He is the wrong person to choose as a role model four the future leaders of the fire nation. Naruto could only summarize everything into one happy thought ' _at least am not going to be suffering alone, and someone else can take of sura and give jiraiya his damnable massages, hehehe welcome to the doghouse fellow inmates you are going to regret it'._

It was peculiar really, and a little strange to feel yourself grow intelligent, sura for all her animal like curiosity had grown to understand and process thoughts at a human level. She was no longer prone to behaving in accordance to her instinct and moods, rather now she could decide and act for herself. Of course everyone else still thinks she is a child, even though she was now as big as a full grown dog, but that was probably her fault, she liked how Naruto will always complain about her but in the end he would take care of her like his life depended on it. She loved him, she loved him like a brother, a friend and most sacred for her a father. And she knew he loved her too. And so that's why she decided to up her training, jiraiya had handed her over to the Inuzuka clan for extensive training among the other Ninken. Jiraiya did not trust the chunin beast tamers enough to hand her over to any of them. According to jiraiya she was to rare and valuable for any other person to not be greedy about owning her. So it was better if she learnt from other accomplished familiars like the Inuzuka ninken who could all fight on their own without help from their partners.

The strength of most beast and animals is dependent on their physique, so more often than not trainers would prefer to feed their partners properly instead of placing emphasis on their physical strength, after all with their abilities, which can encompass anything from as insignificant as spitting Gold, to a dangerous ability such as her soul attacking abilities. With arsenals like that why would they be any need for strength training.

But the Inuzuka thought otherwise, and it was for that reason she was now dragging a sled filled with letters, newspapers and other documents as she ran around the city delivering them. The Inuzuka were also part owners of the Konoha city courier and delivery services, they were joint owners with the government. So it meant sura had more than enough time to drag a boat load of paper and run round the city delivering them.

With aching shoulder blades and burning paws, Sura pushed herself to her limits, training her strength was not the only aspect of her training, the Inuzuka had an obstacle course that helped their ninken acclimate themselves to fighting in all kinds of terrain and situation. He obstacle course took a lot of space and was divided into four parts, each of those parts offered obstacle in different weather and terrain, each area has its own slew of seals that are able to recreation a particular weather. That was the reason why one part was filled with rain and mud, the other with sand and wind not to mention hot, the third was a full blown winter storm, while the fourth was a terrain of sharp pointy rocks and uneven grounds to test balance.

She felt an obligation to naruto and not just because of the bond they have between themselves, just like naruto she was set apart from other creatures by value of her birth, she was something special and so was he, and due to that they have both been put on a pedestal with a lot of expectations riding on their shoulders. She needed to get stronger fast, because naruto has been thrust into a massive game of power and he was smack dab right in the middle of it, and everyone knew with great power comes great responsibility only they always usually forget to say it right. With great power comes great enemies.

Naruto was fidgeting, he was so uncomfortable being stared at by a creepy white haired one eyed man. Naruto was not one to judge based on appearance alone, but this guy looked he had not had a meal in forever.

" Naruto this is Kakashi, a former student of your father, your clansman and from today your body guard."

"Eh?"

As usual jiraiya had managed to catch Naruto of guard, for some reason the man enjoyed rattling his cage. The new guy on the other hand was quiet, in fact he was still staring intently at Naruto. Naruto leaned right an Kakashi eyes followed, he leaned left and the same thing happened. It was quite clear to naruto though that he wouldn't be able to shake this guy off and he was already a part of his life.

"so Kakashi was it?, what's the clan like, are they nice, are they looking for me. Jiraiya says I have a somewhat cousin called Karin, is she okay? When is she coming to see me."

For a moment Kakashi was stumped by the barrage of questions asked, he turned to jiraiya as if to ask permission to speak, jiraiya sighed in reluctantly and said.

"don't tell him everything, at least keep the part about his parents and clans involvement a secret for now, not until he is ready."

" what do you mean to keep a secret, and tell me am sure I can take it, am already ready."

And for the first time since their meeting Kakashi decided to speak, but to jiraiya instead. His voice was hoarse and scratchy, like he hardly found any use for his voice so he has been quiet for a long time. Hoarse it might be but his voice had a slight tremble to it, not one of fear but something almost inherently peculiar, it made him seem vulnerable but at the same time if portrayed him as someone fiercely loyal. Sure Naruto could not judge the guy based on the sound of his voice alone, but all he could say was that Kakashi sounded different, a good kind of different.

" jiraiya sama, forgive my boldness but is it wise to let him know we intend to keep the secret of his parents death from him?"

" What!, no y…you h…hav…have to tell me, I deserve to know."

Jiraiya turned a fierce eye to Kakashi completely ignoring Naruto.

" and he would not have known that the secret was about his parents killers if you had kept your mouth shut!"

"my…my pa…parents were killed, but I thought? Why who would do such a thing, I knew they were betrayed but by who. And you knew and did not tell me!, that's not fair! I deserve to know its my right as their son."

" would you be quiet Naruto and wipe those shameful tears from your eyes. You talk to me about your right, nonsense their biological son you may be, but since they are dead I have seen little from you to give the RIGHT to be called a true son. Your parents were kind, yes when it called for it. But you are not them, your parents knew how to make hard choices, many innocents as well as the guilty had fallen by their hands, but their son is here weak and running around with the dreams of a child, you think you are ready, Humph."

The discontent on jiraiya's face was enough to shock Naruto speechless, the happy go lucky grandfather was gone, and in front of him was the man considered one of if not the strongest person on the whole planet. And his words tore into the deepest and darkest place of his heart. It played against his insecurities. It played on the fact of how intimidated he was of his parents, and how he felt he would never be as good as them. Jiraiya was right though, he was a weakling.

" if you don't want to waste the legacy in your veins, and abuse and waste the power your status as their son has given you, you better man up. In a little under three or four years you will be emperor over all of this damn land of fire, it is up to how you rule. But let me give advice that will help you for life boy, in this path you have a taken, this path to absolute strength, there is no room for second guessing yourself, yes you can love, yes you can be kind and yes you can be happy. But for ninjas and other martial artist out there, there is no such thing as good and evil. There's just you and the power you wield, you own it no one questions you, you don't have it and then you will be relegated to be nothing more than a footnote in history and a servant to your betters. So think long and hard young Uzumaki about what kind of man do you want to be, a man who is kind even to his enemies and then ends up being used foolishly and have no real power. or A man who has no kindness, uses everyone, is powerful, takes what he wants and be the absolute best. Or will you be a man like your father, who is fiercely loyal to his friends and family, ruthless to his enemies, kind to a fault, but not afraid to end the life of a two day old child just to secure his own child's future. Or you can make your own path, and be your own man. But you better be careful a path like that is more risky and might leave everybody around you dead, so Naruto what kind of a man are you? You can leave now."

The tears did not stop flowing, even as he made a bow and left the room. However as soon as he left jiraiya almost crashed to the ground as all strength left his body and needed Kakashi to help him take the seat Naruto just vacated. To Kakashi it looked like the sannin had aged a hundred extra as he looked haggard and emotionally spent, he turned to Kakashi, all trace of the strong and unyielding man gone from his eyes, and in its place was just an old man worried for his student and Godson.

"tell me Kakashi was I too hard on him?"

" whether you were or not remains to be seen jiraiya sama, but know that this was necessary. We know he lost and possible childhood, and this would have been a chance for him to catch up since he now has a comfortable life. But he has to grow up fast, and the more ruthless he is the better, even if he has to become a tyrant. He is beset by enemies on all sides and this is the best possible way for him to get stronger, he needs conviction and besides you and I will not be around forever."

" Yes you are right Kakashi, this is all for his own good. Even if it kills me I will make sure history will not repeat itself. Naruto has to be strong its all that. Matters, its all that's left to save us from total destruction."

Sasuke's day had taken a rather interesting turn, it went so far to show that no matter how meticulous a plan was set, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Or it would be just easier to say fate screwed him and his clan over. But Sasuke has never believed in fate nor will he ever will, he was raised on the precepts of hard fact and data. Fate was just an excuse weak people give when they fail.

Sure the uchiha's plans had fallen down the drain, he expected something like this to happen when the clan first discovered Naruto, he had pushed for them to have him executed, but all the orders he got was to watch him all on the off chance he had somebody watching him.

They could never really be sure if he had someone guarding him or not, now their indecisiveness has given a parasite to take root in the festering body that is the politics of the elemental nation.

Sasuke had a deep appreciation for the night, it was soothing. And for some reason he found that he really performed better under the cover of night. A true assassin to the core. There were a lot of things that could be done under the cover of night, but one of the best things will probably be what he was doing now. Tonight under this blue black blanket spread above the earth and dotted with wondrous balls of burning death Sasuke was…taking a walk.

Though a lot of people would not be surprised he loved walks but this late at night was weird, even for almighty Sasuke uchiha. But even as young as he was, carried a lot of expectations and responsibility to his clan, quite frankly he needed the peace and quiet the walk brought him.

As he walked, he enjoyed the stiff cool breeze as it carried a smell of leaves and . He loved it though, he loved how no matter how happy someone may be every time the wind blows it always carries the scent of someone in pain, of someone who had lost something. T didn't take long for him to find the reason of the pain filled wind.

Uzumaki Naruto, all alone and staring intently at a still pond in of front of him. For a moment he harbored the thoughts of slitting his throat, but that will cause more harm than good, not that Sasuke gave a damn about the repercussions, but he was just not a person who would kill someone when they were not looking, at least not yet.

" Do you ever feel it was to big?"

" hmm…uh…what?"

Naruto's sudden question caught him off guard, he was just going to slip away but somehow naruto noticed his presence.

" The shoes you have to fill, the responsibilities you have to carry and legacy you have to live up to. Do you ever feel it is to big, that you could drown under so many expectations when you barely know how to swim?"

For a while Sasuke deliberated not saying anything, he had no intention of getting involved in uzumaki Naruto's problems. But something made him stay and that something equally made him open his mouth and give an answer. If asked he would probably just tell people he answered out of pity, but he knew better, he one naruto's question Struck a cord deep inside him opening a wellspring of recognition. Recognition of someone who was in a state similar to his, he was older than naruto with a two year difference, but no one can deny the amount of pressure they are under is to much for their young shoulders. Sasuke felt trickle camaraderie with naruto. Maybe he was drunk but for the first time in a long long time, Sasuke felt he could relate to somebody. And whether he would admit or not, the feeling of not being alone, of knowing someone understood was absolutely amazing. So he answered.

"Yes"

" How do you cope? How are you not drowning in despair and frustration. With so much to live up too and so many different person people expect you to be. How are you still you?"

" first of all I don't cope, its impossible just keep on living and grabbing on to every little moment I have when I don't need to be the person others expect me to be. As for your last question am not me anymore. Sure deep down if you search hard enough you will find the old Sasuke, though you will need to do a lot of digging. But ultimately people like us can not afford to be ourselves, at least not in front of others, from the moment we were born all to the fact we born into a position of power, our destiny, our hopes and ambitions have already been decided for us. And from that moment on we cease to be anything but the product of the expectations of our family and people. Such responsibility is not fair to either of us I agree, but it forges us, it makes us stronger. Some people are not strong enough for that kind of power, because that's at it is Naruto power. My brother rejected this role, he fought against our family and in the end it fell to me. I would fight to because I know I am as selfish as my brother, but I am not weak. I know how to rise out of my own needs to be the leader my people need me to be, I will not shy away from a challenge even more so when its my responsibility. We both have the lives of thousands of people in our hands, you more so than me uzumaki, you can not afford to be weak or to run, as much as I want you too. Think of this as training, your responsibility will make you stronger but I am sure in the end there will be people who will accept the real you. This world may be cold and hard steeped and completely bathed in bloodshed and power hungry people, but it is not heartless even monsters can love. Good night and this conversation never happened.

Sasuke left almost as quickly and silently as he had arrived, but not before the wind brought the almost silent whisper from Naruto.

"thank you Sasuke"

He did not care for his thanks or any show of gratitude, they were still enemies regardless of the heart to heart they just had a moment ago. Sure Naruto may be suffering from the same problems as him, but when the chips are down Sasuke will not hesitate to set the Uzumaki on fire.

But after this though Sasuke was now the one left with questions, he wondered if it would ever get easier, he was almost fifteen, barely above a child but old enough to understand a lot of things. So times he wondered if his life would have been different if he wasn't born into the uchiha family. If that were the case the first thing he would have done was have a tomato garden. But it was all wishful thinking. He was Sasuke Uchiha, second son and heir to the uchiha clan leadership, and he will not flinch to build a legacy of dead women and children and stupidly weak men under the heels of his conquering boots as he paved the way for the uchiha to reign greatly for years to come. After all it was easier not caring, but who would judge him, he was doing this for love and the people who he crushed in the process of writing his glory in the history of the elemental nations will call him a tyrant. The strong rule and whether you do it right or not the weak will always play the blame game. He may be hiding a lonely and wounded soul, but Sasuke was ready to be who or what his clan needed him to be for their survival and glory. Because in the end unlike what most people think, anything an uchiha does he or she does it for LOVE.

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_ **hey guys, its been a while and am sorry, but for the past month or so I developed an obsession for virtual reality stories, kind of like sword art online, but more detailed. So am not saying am back, you might not see another chapter anytime soon, since what I lack most in life is motivation. But I will try my best to get another chapter out as soon as possible. So as usual read and review any new ideas will be wildly appreciated. And anybody willing to pay my school fees and send me to college or a university will be worshipped…just saying. Anyway bye guys, Ghana is freaking hot right now and I miss home. Bye.**


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT:**

 **PRINCE HAKU AND THE DEMON OF THE MIST 1**

The awkward silence was grating, they all knew this mission was a team building exercise, but apart from hinata and Ino, Sasuke and naruto could only be compared to a block of wood.

But the day thought different. In naruto's opinion for some reason it was annoyingly bright. The birds were singing the wind so crisp and fresh. A typical and novel like romantic setting. Which of course would explain why he could not take his eyes of hinata. She was beautiful, and as if nature knew, it conformed itself to suit her beauty, letting the rays of the sun hit her at the right angle in a bid to make her seem almost angelic.

Ino was beautiful too, but she hardly possess that regal and bloodthirsty air that hinata seemed to have. It was intoxicating, but naruto will push all this under one excuse… puberty. He was going to be thirteen in a month so this kind of stuff was expected ' _I think'_ of course no one else could see his smitten look. Except of course for the personal body guards of all four of them moving through the shadows, hidden from their charges but quite visible to their teacher.

Jiraiya knew he had to tolerate, their guards following behind. Strong as he was, he was not all powerful, and this brats were royalty so it was quite inevitable. Of course keeping an eye on the guards was much more entertaining than watching naruto looking like a love struck puppy. Which of course would mean something if naruto was not really a love struck puppy. An adult or sex education was somewhere in their future, that is as soon as they started talking to each other again.

Its been two weeks since their talk, but naruto has not said a single word to him since then. Jiraiya may think it was childish and cute, but this was the luxury he was allowing naruto to have. Because this was the only chance he would give that boy to be a child before he crushes what's left of his childhood to dust and leave it to the wandering wind. But until then Naruto was allowed to keep giving him the cold shoulder.

While the silence was appreciated, it got a little bit to much so jiraiya decided to play a game, or in all honesty start implementing operation crush Naruto's childhood. This mission to the wave was to help them get closer, but it was also a way for naruto to learn that he could not trust any of his companions, and to give him a look into the cold hard world he has been thrust into. Because in that world even babies will take a life if it gets them what they want.

"so princess Ino, I heard you made a recent acquisition for the Yamanaka family."

" Yes lord jiraiya we recently acquired the rights to a mining village close to the border we what with the earth nation."

" and it was also to my understanding you ordered the execution of more than half their population when they resisted your acquisition, is that correct?"

The horror that naruto felt was unfathomable, he was slowly beginning to learn how brutal and dangerous the work was, but to think someone who looked so beautiful and innocent like Ino did, who was all smiles as she went out shopping with her friends will unhesitatingly order the death of innocent people. It was traumatic.

And Ino did not look shaken not one bit, it was almost as if she above feeling remorse for what she did. Like it was a normal occurrence with being princess Ino of the Yamanaka royal family.

" lord jiraiya I will not defend my actions, yes it was an unsightly decision to be made, but it had to be done."

" and why is that young Lady?"

Ino was rapidly getting irritated with this probing questions, she could not help but imagine what he was trying to teach her about. She was quite sure it was not about morals, because she knew if jiraiya was in her shoes he would have had the entire village burnt to the ground.

" my reasons for the deaths are quite simple, apart from the fact the village is sitting on one of the biggest deposits of chakra enriched Damascus ore, the mine host's a plethora of tunnels deep into the heart of earth nations. It was used previously in the third shinobi war by the iwa ninjas in their bid to utilize guerrilla tactics and hit Konoha in her flanks. Causing no small amount of loss. Also recent investigation shows that spies from iwa have been using the tunnel systems in the mines to go back and forth between iwa and Konoha. Also the tunnel covers more part of Konoha than iwa so this was a necessary bid to protect our selves. Of course earning a little money on the side with the distribution of the Damascus ore is just a side bonus."

It as quite clear from the grin on his face that jiraiya was impressed, it was so overwhelming Ino found herself blushing like a school girl, or course up until a few weeks ago she was a schoolgirl.

Naruto had no idea what to think or do, this was way beyond his moral understanding, while he understood that protection was needed for the fire nation, why did half the village have to die in this venture. Naruto knew for any of them senseless killings can destroy their reputation and standing in the society and among the people. In his short foray into the world of politics and from everything jiraiya has taught him a leader is not made based on their power alone. Sometimes the love and respect of the people they lead is required, so he was sure Ino must have had a reason…right.

" But Ino that is not enough reason for you to just kill those people, they were innocent. And no matter how you look at it they are still people of the fire nation and empire."

Ino looked at naruto with a gaze that bespoke of an elder admonishing a naïve child of the intricacies of the world.

" Naruto my boy, that was a good question. Maybe we can make a man out of you yet. But to answer your question kid more than seventy percent of the residents in that village are from the hidden rock. They were meticulously planted over the years, as spies and also as a way to keep that mine a secret. They were supposed to protect not just the secret tunnel, but those bastards were selling us our own property above the market cost. Stealing and cheating us of our bounty at the same time. If there's one thing I hate is someone making a fool out of me and my country, those who do have always ended up regretting. And for your information the people who I had executed were highly trained field operatives with years of training and experience under their belt. They put up a fight when their whole operation was uncovered. And so they had to be made an example off, not to mention one of them had the audacity to stain my new dress with mud when he used his blasted earth techniques. And it was of the finest quality silk, spurn from the very body of the white frost larvae. If not for the fact that women can't use earth techniques until the kages or sage realm, I would have like to drown him in a pool of mud, let me see how he likes it. Of course he's already dead so that's that."

Ino was very vain, but naruto could not help but admire her decisiveness. She took lives just for the crime of staining her dress. There's s no doubt in his mind that she would have spared them if one of them had not went ahead and ruined her dress. It was mind boggling she could be so petty, and at the same time quite horrifying a thirteen year old girl could have people slaughtered like cattle.

After that the journey progressed rather quietly, apart from the fact that he had known Sasuke and Ino from their years together at the academy, to the outside eye they were nothing more than strangers to each other. The forest path they were walking on however was a different story. There was nothing peculiar about it. But the road they were on cut through a particularly nasty forest known for its infestation of trolls. While they won't come out during the day, since the sun renders their skin as hard as stone thereby making it hard for them to make movements of any kind.

Troublesome they may be but almost thirty years ago this entire road, both its otherwise unremarkable stones and pebbles to the tall sinewy trees that always cast a perpetual shade were warded with seals that served a variety of functions. There were seals that repelled the trolls to make the road safe at night, of course sometimes it fails, which is why this was a prime place to train chunin ninjas and give them missions. Chunins were already a specialized corner of the martial world. They all lack the ability to use elemental chakra as a whole regardless of the sex. But they had access to chakra in its rarest form as it helps to supplement their abilities. Chunins are either sensors, seal specialist, beast masters, and doctors etc. They are a very important factor to a shinobi team and village which is why they are well coveted and respected. Due to the specializing in on aspect in the many flexible forms of chakra usage, they are the best at what they do. A chunin with the right materials can severely injure a kages or in rare cases kill them.

But while naruto was not familiar with this road he knew for a fact that there was not supposed to be anything like a puddle in the middle of the road. One of the seals that spanned the miles this road possessed was an absorb seal. It retained anything from as thick as blood to even the tiny molecules that made up water. In other word apart from a desert, this was the driest place in the whole elemental nations or at least one of them.

Naruto noticed Sasuke tense, and ino's eyes gained a ferocious glint in them. Hinata looked as normal as can be, if not for the fact naruto noticed the veins around her eyes slowly becoming visible and bulging. The atmosphere around them became really tense as all four of them were preparing for a confrontation. Naruto for the first noticed jiraiya's absence like a sledge hammer to the gut. On thing he was sure of is that this was not a training exercise, on thing naruto had learned in the months he had spent with his godfather was that jiraiya will always tell him ahead if there was a training so he could prepare himself. He might never know what the training might entail until he started it. But he knew for a fact jiraiya have never sent him anywhere blind. So there might be a problem lurking around behind the contours and shadows of this trees and jiraiya wanted them to face it.

As if knowing they had been found four shadows jumped out, from each side of naruto and headed straight for him, two more also jumped out of the puddle behind them with their target sorely being naruto. For a while he was caught of guard by the suddenness of their arrival. There was no way to truly know what level their strength was but there was also no way to truly back down either. It was do or die, but Naruto was no stranger to that aspect of life. Because he realized something, he lived for the thrill and danger of the unknown. He has never been more stronger and sharper than when he felt his life was in danger. Training with jiraiya taught him that.

All his opponents were covered in black ninja garbs. Except for the two behind him, they had on steam masks with cloths reminiscent of mist ninjas. There was no denying this guys were stronger than him. And there was no denying this guys were going to underestimate him. And for that they were going to pay heavily.

Naruto quickly slid on the ground as the first attacker went past him, colliding painfully with the serrated chain that appeared in the position he once was a few moments ago, the guy was shredded like mince meat. Disgusting? Yes it was but naruto could only be thankful the guy died quickly.

Naruto went for a low blow at his next attacker while that person was preoccupied and distracted by the sudden death of his partner. Naruto received a nasty surprise as he did not come in contact with any male parts, instead there was nothing, and his blow was accompanied by a very feminine yelp.

To say he was horrified would have been a big understatement, it might not be the first time this has happened, but naruto can safely say he has fallen into the ranks of fighters who were embarrassed on the battlefield. Thankfully the black clad man turned woman's head exploded in a shower of blood. And behind her was hinata with an outstretched palm and glaring eyes that were all the more emphasized by the bulging veins around them. So she was pissed he hit a low blow on a woman. Not that the female was complaining since she's ready dead, but in his defense he did not know she was a woman.

With a face burning the color of lava, naruto regrouped with Sasuke, hinata and Ino. They had been able to efficiently dispatch their enemies, except for the two mist guys with the serrated chains. Out of all of them Naruto knew he was the only one who did not kill someone.

Even though he had been preparing for this for most of his life, it did not make it easy, he did not freeze or anything but when it came down to it he had opted for crippling blows instead of killing ones. The others did not mention his shortcomings, he knew they were well aware of his fuck up, but they did not say anything. He knew eventually he would have to do the deed. But he was not sure if he was ready yet. Naruto had grown up appreciative of the gift that was life. He did not have much, but when the people of Konoha could spare anything they always gave. They were not all good but for the few he knew, they had shown him what's like to get the better things out of life. And because of his lack and humble beginnings he ached and hungered for the better things of life.

It was his reason for growing stronger, but in all of his careful planning's he had always manage to avoid the main question that was prevalent with the path he had chosen to take. Was he willing to die and kill for his dreams. He was quickly learning there was no right way to take a life, sure there were some despicable humans in this world who rather enjoyed the thrill of taking a life. But in the end it comes down to power, if you have that, then killing will be nothing but a ceremony for you. No one will judge you, you become your own judge, jury and executioner.

Naruto was sure he would never be ready, and with the power that has been giving to him, it was inevitable that innocents will fall at his hands, whether he liked it or not. And such thoughts scared him fiercely.

" **Boy you do know you are in the middle of a fight right!"**

" lo…lor…lord Kurama?"

The wave of terror that washed over him was felt by everyone around him. Not to mention the sound of the name of a being that was literally a God on his lips brought pause to everybody, including the attacking mist ninjas standing opposite them.

The three royals had a look of shock on their face. Of course it was known that he was the next vessel of Kurama and the ninth gate to the chaos dimension. An unending power source. But it was general knowledge that the tailed celestial demon beast never communicated with their hosts. Because they deemed humans unworthy. Kurama was one of the few exceptions since he was also the guardian of the Uzumaki clan. And even then for the uzumaki to get an audience with their guardian is something rare even for their guardian.

" **This is not the time for questions of morals boy, you are in a fight and whether it is right or wrong you are still going to kill if you want to survive. But this situation aside the real question what are you willing to kill for. Death will now be a big part of your future, sometimes you will bring it down on others. Sometimes there will bring it down on you, and the people you love and those around you will suffer for it. I refuse to have a pacifist self hating righteous prick for a vessel. To be my vessel means you will forge a path of murder blood and carnage. So the question is still the same what are you willing to kill for?".**

That question resounded and echoed in his mind, how was he supposed to know the answer to a question this simple yet so complex. He was well aware that he was now the center of attention. Calling the name of a celestial demon will do that. But still it was so hard to answer.

" I don't know" he answered in a whisper, and with those three words he pours all his confusion, and frustrations for every turn he's life has made since he met jiraiya. Sometimes he wished he never tried to scam the old man, into training him. Right now however he finds himself asking what if he had chosen a normal life, a life where he did not have to worry about how to keep his parents legacy alive or where he had to learn to always keep an eye behind him twenty four seven in paranoia of enemies hidden behind every shadow. He had no idea what he would kill for, no idea at all.

" **well boy if you don't have a reason now, that doesn't mean you won't n the future, life is ever changing and ever growing. Regardless of how hopeless your position seems. I can guarantee you're going to make bonds that will last a lifetime. Bonds of friendship, bonds of leadership, bonds of love and inevitably bonds of hate. But for now, since you have no reason yet, don't tear yourself up about it. So just shut up, stop whining and KILL!".**

And naruto shot out like a ball out of a cannon, all fire and iron of death. In both hands two kunai's and their glint and flash under the shadowed sunlight of the forest path part promised a symphony of death as it came under wings of the dance of summer. Heat and speed, wind and strength, an art form of death and destruction. And naruto delivered.

It was quite obvious the mist ninjas were jonin realm practitioners, people who were stronger and faster than naruto and his comrades. But after five minutes of hand to hand combat they were riddled with cuts and stab wounds, while naruto only had an ugly wound on his side from a moment of carelessness. Naruto was unpredictable, and the little lull in the fight prompted Sasuke to come in charging with a spinning hill kick, one of the brothers dodged leaving the other an unfortunate recipient of the teenagers kick. Sasuke landed unbalanced and the other brother took advantage and launched Sasuke back into naruto courtesy of a brutal kick to the chest, a resounding crack was heard as a few of Sasuke's ribs were cracked, while Naruto had a dislocated shoulder from the impact.

For three sweet seconds both brothers had looks of confusion on their faces, before hinata came in a whirlwind of blue and grey, rapidly tapping the bodies of both brothers rendering their right arms useless. Hinata move back before they could make any move of retaliation.

There was a stalemate of sorts as both sides were observing the other. The only sound was the labored breathing of Sasuke and Ino. Ino had simultaneously used a mind control technique, something that as a genin without the ability to yet project chakra out of her body should be impossible. Yet she pushed the limit and successfully stunned both brothers for three seconds, it spoke volumes of her abilities giving how intricate mind control techniques were.

It was hard to say who moved first, but when they did all mayhem broke loose. The four of them were fighting together for the first time, but their skills and techniques were so in league with each other it was as they had known themselves for a very long time and hard survived countless wars. Naruto's unpredictable style of fighting gave both ninjas a hard time, they were completely unable to predict or read a pattern out of naruto's style of fighting, leaving them only their instincts to survive the blond hurricane. Every time they tried to attack Sasuke will be there intercepting and redirecting their attack into Hinata's ultimate defense and soft hard strikes that left their bones and muscles shaking from exertion. And Ino, well Ino was passed out on the road. Their strain from her previous foray into jonin level abilities had left her incapacitated.

In no time at all the mist ninja were completely on defense, with no way to attack, they sloped up and made a mistake simultaneously. With the opening provided both hinata and Sasuke struck, with hinata sending a chakra infused palm strike to the forehead of on of the brothers will Sasuke did the same but straight for his heart, hitting with everything they have got.

Naruto followed by slipping his kunai into the heart of the other ninja. Painfully wrapping his dislocated arm around his neck, naruto continued to slip his kunai in and out of his body, screaming, crying and killing all at the same time. Everything was a haze of red and blood, rage and grief and tears. With every movement that kunai made, naruto felt more of himself dying, he could almost watch everything that made him, who he was die that day. There was no more prankster king from hell or the young man who had the guts to try and scam the strongest man in the elemental nations. All he felt was empty, and in that emptiness everything went black.

Haku hated being this close to the uzumaki territory, of course this was important to their plans, but still it was a blatant reminder of what he once had. The fire nation and empire had four leading noble family and one origin family that led them. Each family led in a cycle of thirty years per reign. The Yamanaka, followed by the uchiha, followed by the hyuga, followed by the yuki. But after the hyuga the origin clan will lead. The uzumaki. And once the uzumaki are done the yuki will take over as the next to rule. Of course this should have not been a problem for him. He had no hope of ruling, maybe his son might have a chance, but so many things went wrong. The yuki are immigrants from the mist nation, fearsome assassins with a bloodline limit over control of ice. Which normally should be impossible for male ninjas. But the yuki had the bloodline limit to control ice and to a little extent water chakra. It did not take long for them to rise to power in the fire nation, and in no time at all found themselves as part of its rulers. The yuki had a rich and long history, just like the uzumaki they could claim to have been on the elemental nations from the beginning of civilization. Thousands upon thousands of years of rich history and accomplishments. And like most clans their pride in their long ancestry festered a cancer that was slowly eating them away. In the yuki family their bloodline limit has a rare variation or mutation. It gave them the ability to make glass and to a little degree create small pocket dimensions and doors to the chaos dimension. While this power was not in a large or as grand a stage as the Jinchuriki's, it granted any yuki with the ability the power to summon and control hundreds of chaos beast or devils. For a while the yuki clan enjoyed the prosperity and fear this power brought, they enjoyed status equal and sometimes greater than the jinchuriki, most of which spent their time hiding. But over the years they came to learn of his corruptive this power was, if a person kept on opening the gates for a long time and constantly, that person will end up being possessed by a devil of chaos and wreak havoc on the mortal plane. A creature locked away in the very cradle of creation and with all the malice of a thousand years riding along in the body of a yuki, with power over ice, water and the ability to tear a back hole into chaos itself.

Well the answer to that was quite simple, chaos. Death count rose to millions, hunger despair and pain riddled the land like sores on skin. Eventually the Yuki's grew old and died, and with them the devils that possesses them. The whole world now looked at the yuki with the same apprehensiveness you would give a poisonous snake. And no one hated this development than the Yuki's themselves. And so from then on an yuki born with that ability was drowned or killed at childbirth and the mother killed and burnt to ashes as Her remains are spread to the wind in a bid to appease whatever God will listen to get the bad blood out of their family. And so the world forgot about it, until haku was born, the very heir to the yuki clan and a potential candidate as the next emperor of the fire nation, that is until they discovered he had the bloodline ability that over the years has been coined the devils gate key. His father butchered his mother right in front of him, and haku sentenced his father to a fate worse than death, by locking him in the very prison where the most vile things in existence are hidden, the chaos dimension. And after that Haku ran, he left everything behind in the hopes he could forget. At the time he was only eight years old. A year later the yuki clan sent someone to end their shame, to kill him. At the time Haku was no more than a vagabond and better, shoeless and homeless, he was forced to rely on his ability to summon devils, they killed so that he could eat, and protected him from what ever will try to kill him. And he lived like that until the assassin sent to kill arrived. Until Zabuza the demon of the mist and lap dog of the yuki family found him.

Zabuza could hardly raise a finger against him, Haku looked so pitiful even death will pity him. Zabuza took care of him, trained. And all this he did away from the yuki family, going rouge and taking haku on the run. Until they finally found their new family. A family that accepted them and other runaways like them, gave them a purpose a goal. Gave them life.

" Haku if you think to hard your brain will explode. And its not right for a ninja to be lost in thought. Stop slouching and sit straight."

" Yes Zabuza sama, my apologies."

" Do not apologize kid, never do that. No matter what happens in your life take responsibility and bear your punishment like a man, but never apologize. You owe nothing to no one but yourself."

"hai!"

" Good now prepare to move out, the ninth gate and jinchuriki is close to the village. We have to capture him and make a quick getaway before the uzumaki's in this area catch wind of us. Come on Haku we're going to take pain away from the world and bring true peace."

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_ hey guys this chapter is not edited, but I really needed to get this chapter out to meet my quota for this month or week, I've still not figure out an update schedule. Any way this chapter was mostly about naruto's character development and to introduce the character that will replace Karin in Sasuke's team taki. Anyway read and review, of course if anybody has any idea to make the story better, it will be greatly appreciated. This is a reader interactive story, which means I will mostly be writing based on what my readers want to see. Mostly but not always. OK guys have a nice day, night, afternoon wherever you are. Its actually six fourth eight pm here in Ghana, and I miss my home in Nigeria and am hungry and bye till next time.


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE: PRINCE HAKU AND THE DEMON OF THE MIST 2**

When naruto opened his eyes, he was treated to the sight of a brooding Kakashi, though of course it might be brood was his default setting. He was in an unfamiliar place, the wooden beams supporting the ceiling above him and the old wool blanket underneath him that smelled of carrots and instant ramen spoke to him of a familiarity he couldn't place. This place felt like home, a normal home. With no worries or cares a home of someone innocent.

And then it all came crashing down on him, in his despair he couldn't stop the tear that somehow escaped the prison that was his eyes. Neither could he stop the next one or the one after that. Soon enough he was fully crying, his young body wracked with sobs and horror that almost seemed to break him. To Kakashi's credit he did not make a sound, quite content to let they young boy mourn his lost innocence. In a little under half an hour naruto calmed down enough to hear Kakashi talk to him.

" The first time is always the hardest".

With red stained eyes from crying, Naruto asked

" Does it ever get easy? After the first time that is?"

Kakashi looked at him with more emotions that naruto had ever seen him conjure.

" no naruto its never easy, the best way is to accept what you have done. You have to come to terms with your choice. The life of a shinobi is riddled with death and horrors, both of the innocent and guilty variety. And with that a lot of people are trusting your judgement in a lot of things. It is up to you to decide the value of the lives you take, and how you make their deaths count and mean something. All shinobi's have to learn to look at the big picture, ultimately it is always a question of how the deaths of your enemies or the people you have to kill affects the environment and your comrades. Life is full of choices, no one can ever say they kill for the right reason, no you can only make sure you live for the right reason and for the right people, that's all that matters now, your responsibility to your people and yourself. Every other thing is collateral damage, you can pay for your sins, which ever way you choose. But remember sometimes, to save a life, you have to take a life regardless of innocent or guilt. Because in the end everything will always turn out right. Your father taught me that, and now its up to you what to do with this lesson, you can read any meaning into it but still come back to the same thing. Stop being such a pussy, get up, dust your shoulders and keep fighting, because that is the way of our clan, that is the uzumaki way. And that's just how life is. Be down in ten minutes, you missed breakfast but I set something aside for you."

Kakashi left soon after, leaving Naruto alone with his thoughts. Too many things, moral or otherwise were set before him for the sole purpose of his betterment. The only downside was that he had to figure all this out himself.

Their mission was a c rank mission. Apparently their team was much to formidable for anything below c rank. Seriously who in their right minds will have potential heirs and quite possibly their future rulers pulling out weeds from their gardens. That's just asking for trouble, coupled with the fact that jiraiya had seen no use in having them do such menial and domestic tasks.

For the moment though it seemed the mission will progress from here. During his foray into the land of unconsciousness, Naruto had been carried to the town of wave. A port town that served as a route of trade between the uzu islands where the Uzumaki clan resided. Sometime around six years ago, a mega corporation ran by some self entitled punk called gato had acquired the deed to the whole town. Which gave him the power to monopolize trade between the land of fire and the islands. The natural resources of wave, like their rich lumber and fertile lands all fell under the power of gato and his shark of a corporation.

Somehow by luck, two weeks ago Konoha received an encrypted message from wave's town elder, a Carpenter that went by the name Tazuna. Since communication had been cut off from the town no body knew what was happening. It explained everything that had happened and so their team was sent to investigate, and take care of any problem that arises. Of course such mission is not qualified to be a C rank mission. This could only be a high risk B rank or a low risk A rank mission. But Tazuna only had funds for a C rank, that and of course it served as a cover for the royal brats as jiraiya had taken to calling them.

Jiraiya had given them a day off and gave them a reconnaissance mission, which of course defeats the effect of a day off. They went around town separately to investigate anything they could about gato and his corporation, along with the goons he hired.

The mission was not that successful, apparently most if not all of the people apart from Tazuna and his family were afraid of gato. But in the end the dilapidated state of the town was enough to let everyone know how fucked up everything was. The only saving grace they now had was the bridge gato was building. Since wave is a port town on an island fairly close to the mainland, the bridge will take away the options of gato's ships. And will open a new avenue of trade for the town. Gato will rather see the whole town dead than let that happen, it was why Tazuna had sent a message for help, since they were much closer to the main land than they were to the uzumaki islands.

So far naruto had felt sickened by what he had seen, which was why he was really looking forward to today's training with Kakashi. Their contingent of bodyguards were all still out of sight, courtesy of jiraiya's orders. As for jiraiya himself he said something about doing some research, whatever that meant.

" Sasuke, naruto, Ino, and hinata. You are all still in the genin realm so elemental techniques are still out of your reach. However as your are you can augment your speed, strength and defenses with chakra that now flows through you. Hinata is already at the advanced genin stage, making her stronger than the rest of you. Sasuke and Ino are at the initial stage which makes you naruto the weakest link among this team. Now we don't have time to refine any of your fighting techniques since jiraiya seems to believe gato will make a strike for the bridge anytime soon. So in that regards I will teach you all how to climb a tree."

For a moment they all stared dumbly at him until Ino asked the question on all their minds.

" what do you mean climb a tree?"

" exactly what you heard. One of the main problems many ninjas and other martial artist face is that they have either to much chakra or to little to be able to form a perfect balance for the techniques. The ones with to much ends up overpowering their techniques which lets it blow up in their face, which either leaves them hurt and to exhausted to fight. While the ones with too little can not supply enough power for their techniques and can't fight for as long as needed. Which is where climbing the tree comes in. You will climb it without your hands using solely your feet and chakra to stick to the surface. How does this works, well every physical thing in this world has chakra, and if they cant move their chakra is in not as much flux as a physical thing that moves. So you need to create a resonance with the physical entity, by balancing your chakra in direct ratio with the surface of the physical object you would be able to walk, sit, fight, drink, sleep, and even have sex on it as if you were on normal ground. Any questions?"

Naruto timidly raised his hands, when everyone turned to him, they could see he was a red as a tomato. Sasuke thought the color suited him.

" why did you have to mention s…se…sex?"

Kakashi turned his one eye on Naruto looking at him with a scrutiny that even someone with two eyes could never achieve. And then he smiled, with his eye!(is that even possible).

" well young naruto, that's because having sex upside down, or when you are defying gravity is fun, when I was a little older than you, that was how I refined my chakra control to the level it is today. If you are fighting, you will always pay attention to your opponent, that was the first lesson drilled into your heads when you joined the academy, but if you are not fighting and your mind is muddled with the pleasure of being with a girl or a guy depending on your preference, you will not always remember to pay attention to your control. But when both bodies are joined together you will need to create a resonance between your partner and surface area you are in contact with. This style of training is mostly called sexual cultivation. I know of eight schools that solely teach how to progress in realms and strength solely by sex alone. Your master jiraiya studied in one, your father also did for a year after he lost a bet with jiraiya and your mother had to go and drag him out, and of course the current mizukage and empress of the mist nation terumi mei, studied at the best of them all. But unless all four of you want pair of and fuck like rabbits this avenue of training is not available to you, till you either get a boyfriend or get married, of course the guys will get girlfriends too, unless of course the play for the same team."

Sasuke, Ino, and Naruto looked like they had been dunked with red paint by the sheer embarrassment they were feeling. Hinata showed no visible reaction at all. But whose to say she wasn't affected by Kakashi's crude words.

After that the training began in earnest fervor as both Sasuke and naruto wanted to do anything to get rid of the embarrassment they were feeling. For the girls it was easy, the hyuga had a fighting style that mainly dealer with the ability to incapacitate an opponent fighting capability. But of course that could also literally destroy a person from inside out. The gentle fist of the hyuga clan required precise chakra control. It made the exercise almost worthless to hinata. But Kakashi had stay upside down hanging from one of the three branches for as long as she could, while he constantly pelted her with nuts from the forest floor to refine her control and make her more focused.

Ino also did not take long to be able precariously defy gravity by standing horizontally on one of the tree trunks, while Kakashi told her crude jokes that had her screaming and screwing with her concentration. For Kakashi this was the best kind of torture.

Sasuke and naruto turned their own training into a competition between each other, and with each of them trying to outdo the other, their control steadily rises. The training also help naruto be more familiar with the chakra in his body. And in this fashion two days passed.

Haku was at his wits end with Zabuza. Sometimes the man acted like such a child it was a supeise he had survive this long. Somehow he had gotten himself food poisoned, and now haku had to spend much of his personal time looking for herbs and plants to cure the idiot. It was at times like this he wished his stupid master was not around.

Haku arrived in a clearing littered with pieces of wood and tree bark,(which of course are one and the same thing, but whose here to contradict him) and right in the middle of all this destruction was someone that once upon a time haku would have considered a rival, an enemy or a friend. But fate just loves to fuck around except of course if the big bosses up there derive fun from poking and prodding the lives of mundane mortals.

Naruto uzumaki was not the way haku expected the next emperor of the fire nation to be, he was rough, untamed, wild, dangerous and above all innocent. For some reason it made haku have this inexplicable reason to protect that innocence.

Of all the heirs naruto is the only one that has not been touched or polluted by atmosphere and machinations of a universe run by royalty and politics. But he was a target, sooner or later haku would have to come for him. He would have no choice but to hunt him down like an animal and destroy him without regards for his dreams or ambitions.

Haku considered if it would be a mercy to just end his life here, a d such thoughts was accompanied by actions as haku's dainty and pale hands creeper slowly to Naruto's neck. Death would have been a mercy, it would have been bliss riding on the coattails of freedom from all responsibility and expectations. It would have been the end of everything, it would spare Naruto the chance of going through the pain haku himself have had to go through.

But haku shook him awake instead, naruto deserved more than just being killed in his sleep, he was a noble and not just that he was also a ninja, a warrior forged for the battlefield and carnage that is life itself. That made him every bit worthy of a warriors death.

When Naruto opened his eyes haku was shocked by how blue they were, his eyes seems to scream innocence, but the taint of blood could be seen in you searched deeper, the young man now had the eyes of a killer, the eyes of a man who has taken a life and would not be scared to do it again if the situation called for it. Though for the life of him haku could not figure out why naruto was blushing like red ripe tomato, it was…funny in a sense.

" um hi miss my name is uzumaki naruto, what's yours?"

For a moment haku was startled, this boy could not be that stupid or gullible. He woke up to the face of a stranger and the first thing he does was to introduce himself. Not to mention the fact naruto has just called haku Miss. If there was ever a time to be pissed of it was now. Sure he understood how often if not always people mistooke him for a girl. At least this explained naruto's misconception of calling haku miss.

" You know sleeping outside like this is not healthy, you might catch a cold."

Naruto was all to eager to reply

" oh don't worry am a ninja so this is normal. Right now all am doing is training so that I can get strong."

" why?"

"why what?"

" why do you train?"

For a moment naruto was quiet, it was almost as if he expected the answer to be obvious and plain as daylight.

"umm…am training to be strong"

"Be strong for what?"

" so that I can protect myself and fulfill all the expectations my family had of me."

Haku sighed, it was one of those rare moments when naruto's naivety and innocence came peeking out. If his spies could be beloved even though he was only twelve years and almost thirteen, naruto had a surprisingly mature mind for his age. Of course this is to be expected, he grew up on the streets in poverty and hunger. The fact that he still had such innocence intact was nothing short of a miracle.

" if that is your only reason for training then you won't become strong enough to achieve anything."

Naruto was stumped for a moment, Haku could almost see the gears working overtime in his mind as naruto attempted to make head or tails of what haku just said.

" Then what other reasons do you have for training."

" its quite simple really, I came here to pick some herbs for someone. And this person is important to me. I would do anything to make sure that person is okay, the thought of keeping that person safe is what's drives me to be strong. So basically what am saying is that if you have your precious people, people who are close to your heart, who loves you and you love them back. If you use them as a motivation, choose to be strong so that you can protect them, choose to be hungry so that they can stay full, choose to be sick so that they can be well, choose to be sad so that they can be happy, and finally choose to die so that they can live. Such is the way of strength, true strength comes in all shapes and sizes, but the best and most worthy is when you struggle to be strong so that you can keep your precious people safe."

" that was so deep man."

Naruto spoke those words with his eyes open wide in adoration and surprise, but of all the things to say did it have to be those words. Haku was torn whether to laugh or cry, he knew Naruto understood him, but naruto like most boys finds it hard to talk about his feelings, especially in the front of someone he thinks is a girl.

" so you are saying if I train to protect the people important to me, I will get stronger?."

" of course. And for some people like the Hokage's and emperors they are the strongest, because of all the people they lead, they have to be very strong. Because once you are a leader everyone you rule is your precious person and you have to make sure they are OK."

Of course haku knew the previous statement was a cheap shot, but if Naruto somehow survives this next ordeal and successfully become emperor in three years, he needs to know that the whole land of fire was his to protect, cherish and love. Basically haku did not want naruto to be a bad ruler. He quite liked the young man. He was a little dense but he had a lot of heart.

Naruto kept nodding morosely as if he had been giving great advice by some spiritual monk.

"OK I have to get going, nice to meet you Naruto."

" ok bye miss haku."

Haku could not help his twitching eyebrow as he turned to leave the clearing. But before that.

" oh and Naruto by the way am a guy you know."

" yeah ok sure."

It seemed he was still somewhat lost in thought. But haku was going to give him a few minutes to let it sink in. '5…4…3…2…1'

" WHAAATTTT!"

Ah there it is, haku could not begin to imagine the dilemma naruto now finds himself in. But it was fun, It brought a smile to haku's face. It has been so long it was almost as if he had forgotten what it meant to really have fun, this encounter was something haku was going to cherish for a long time even if he has to kill naruto later.

Naruto now had something he could add to his list of hated things, and that was guarding a bridge. For the past few days after his encounter with haku, apart from his chakra control training in the morning and his late night training, his afternoons has been occupied with guarding tazuna their client and his co workers who were all working hard to have a bridge completed. Once this bridge is connected to the main land, it would open an avenue of trade and commerce for the people of wave and liberate them from the oppressive thumb of gato and his corporation.

It was boring work of course, but naruto had to satisfy himself with the knowledge that the bridge would soon be complete. While he slacked of more often than not, other times he always chose to lend a helping hand. Today however he was replaying a conversation he had with tazuna's grandson. The young boy had lost both his fathers to gato's machinations, so in the end he chose to lash out at the world and had given up all hope. Being the person he was naruto could not sit around that kind of negativity, considering how he grew up and more often than not he was ignored by some of the denizens of Konoha or sometimes he had found himself in a position where his status as an orphan and someone who has nothing to offer had made people treat him unfairly. But he had learnt to push on, to struggle for a future he was not entirely sure he would achieve but he would run towards regardless. He hoped the young boy listened to him, after all the future is not set in stone and if he kept on living with that sort of view of the world things might go horribly wrong.

A sudden fog slowly creeper up on the bridge, thick, white and goddamn ominous. Naruto was not a fool, as a ninja and any self respecting person who studied any form of martial arts and the art of energy knew how to predict the weathers pattern to a certain degree. There was no drop in temperature neither was there any disturbances in the sea underneath him. Someone was using the mist technique.

Which means the enemy was probably a woman, or somebody with variant bloodline that let them utilize the mist technique, which fell under the water style chakra of techniques which of course is only available to people with the yin variant body. Which of course means all female entity with an occasional exception.

While naruto could not be sure which area the enemy was coming from, he quickly ushered the workers of the bridge and went to stand at the center of it. He needs to buy the workers time to escape, and time for Sasuke to get here, which should be in about ten or fifteen minutes.

He did not know when the masked man appeared, the mist never announced his arrival, one minute the spot in front of him was empty, and the next there he was, standing in front of him with the mask worn by hunter nins of the hidden villages. It was only a matter of luck and the scream of an overgrown fox in his stomach that alerted him to the impending danger behind him.

Naruto ducked in time to feel the wind displace his blond hair from the force generated from a broad sword so huge it was more than half the size of naruto's body.

Naruto knew the danger of leaving his back to his opponent, so he moved to the left, putting both enemies in the periphery of both his eyes.

The new comer had a plethora of bandages wrapped all over his body, he was quite tall, standing a seven feet two or so. The only thing both men had in common was the black cloak with the depictions of red clouds they had on it.

The bandage guy jumped lifting his sword to bring it down smashing on the spot naruto was standing mere moments ago.

While naruto was able to dodge by the skin of his teeth, this was his assailants plan all along as naruto was pushed towards the masked man. A rookie mistake which he had just warned himself not to make a not less than two minutes ago. He left his back to his enemy, and when the masked person hit naruto, his body was flung like a rag doll as a feeling of intense coldness permeated his body and he spat out blood.

He landed hard on the ground but he stood quickly enough to avoid getting his head smashed in by the masked man. Naruto while still on the ground unexpectedly threw a sliding kick, which of course his opponent lifted up his right foot to dodge, but in the process left himself unbalanced as naruto used the momentum from his spin to a Pele kick, hitting his attacker behind his head.

Naruto was only at the first stage of the genin realm, so his strength was not strong enough to cause any damage whatsoever, short of surprising his attacker. The masked man stumbled back a few steps, surprised by Naruto's unorthodox methods of fighting, this gave naruto a little breathing space as he put a little distance between himself and his opponents.

Wiping the blood dripping down his chin Naruto asked.

" who are you guys?, what do you want?"

For a moment both his opponents said nothing, maybe they saw through his plans to stall them in time for reinforcements to arrive.

" hahahaha impressive, very impressive as expected of the next emperor of the fire nation."

All manner of imaginary question marks appeared all over naruto's head as he looked at the bandaged guy who just spoke in abject confusion. 'what just happened' naruto thought to himself.

" if you were a bit stronger your style of fighting would have really caused problems for haku here, even I did not see that kick coming to be honest, and to give credit where its due, I have not seen haku take a hit in years. Sure it had a lot to do with luck, but it was really out of the box thinking."

Naruto was so confused he had an overwhelming urge to stuff this guy's face with poop or something, he asked a different question but this guy was give a completely different and unwanted answer. He was stalling yes. But this guy was also giving naruto the impression that he was also stalling and waiting for his own reinforcements. But naruto was sure as hell that was total bullshit.

Theses guys were strong enough to kill him in seconds if they wanted too, they had no need for reinforcements. So which means theses guy was trying to bait him into making a stupid mistake, by acting in regards to the realization that they also had help coming.

In a nutshell, if naruto had not had almost a week of tactical and mind battles simulation created by the ridiculous eye mojo of Kakashi secretly every night for the past week, he would have fallen for this trap like a child born yesterday.

The best naruto could do was remain silent, but of course that was not his style. Naruto had come along way from the boy he was three months ago. Even though he grew up on the streets with no familial love or long lasting happiness both jiraiya and Kakashi had almost beaten the notion that there was no gold at the end of the rainbow bridge only blood, there was no Santa Claus (whatever the hell that means) only death. You could say he was hardly a child anymore, so he was able to keep a level head and asked again.

" who the fuck are you guys?"

The masked man raised a nonexistent eyebrow in surprise and replied.

" are you supposed to use such crass language, you look a little too young to be so barbaric."

Naruto took a deep breath and looked at the masked man straight in the eye and asked again.

" who the flying fuck are you guys fucking supposed to be?"

A twitch, if you were not looking for it you would not have been able to see it. Grown up or not, as a child Naruto had one ability he always used against all his opponents…the power to massively annoy a person to the point of insanity.

Unfortunately the masked guy was not as gullible as he looked, as he gave a head signal for haku to commence attack. Somewhere in the back of his mind something was screaming for naruto's attention but he did not know what. He was supposed to remember something but for the life of it, he couldn't remember. He quickly pushed it to the back of his mind as he prepared for battle.

Haku was seven times as fast as naruto maybe more, so it only took him a moment to appear in front of naruto. The punch he threw was clumsy and left him with so many openings even a dog will recognized it for what it was, a blatant and stupidly laid trap.

Naruto was incensed this guy was not taking him seriously, even though he was just at the first stage of the genin realm to underestimate him was to court death.

In anger of the blatant disrespect naruto did the only thing any self respecting man would do at that moment…he kicked haku in the balls, and squeal that came next was sweet, sweet music in his ears. ' ha that will show never to underestimate me next time punk' naruto thought to himself in glee.

The bandaged guy was so shocked by the current outcome he froze like a deer in headlights. Haku on the other hand was crying on the floor like a baby. There was much to be said about naruto, considering he just changed the tone of a death match in seconds.

And that was the sight Kakashi and rest of Naruto's team arrived to see. It only took Ino about fives seconds to ask an obvious question.

" um Naruto what's going on?"

 _ **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_ _hey guys, am sorry for not updating their fix for the past two months, life caught up with me bad. Anyway I can't say when the next chapter will be coming out since I am still trying to sort things out. But I will try my best to get it to you guys a soon as possible. Also as usual I need some feedback and ideas for the fix, because honestly I am just writing this from the top of my head. Anyway thanks guys till next time._


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN:**

 **THE ICE PRINCE.**

Everybody held their breath in anticipation. Haku had stopped writhing on the ground a few moments ago and was standing behind his partner, with the look of pure outrage he was giving naruto, naruto knew the low blow he delivered will not be forgotten until he was paid back in kind.

But while everybody was psyching their selves in preparation for the upcoming battle, naruto was trying to male sense of something. He did not notice it before while he was fighting but now that he had time to think, it could not be a random coincidence that he met someone called haku just a few days ago, and now someone with the same name was standing in front of albeit masked.

Of course it could still be a coincidence, but in this line of work there is no such thing as a coincidence. While naruto would not be adverse to fighting haku if he stood in the way of his mission he could not place why the boy who was nice and gave him advice a few days ago could change so drastically.

" ahh Kakashi of the sharingan. The dog of the uzumaki clan. Last I heard you were dead, now I am seeing the miracle of the century as the copy non returns to life."

When the masked man spoke with such familiarity with Kakashi, it shocked all of them, except of course for the one eyed cyclops behind them who he might had was creepily skilling at their opponent. The person who spoke next surprised naruto a bit, after all its not everyday the beast in you decides to make a comment.

" **for the life of me I don't get it. Why do bad guys or people in that role feel they have to vomit a stream of useless dialogues and laugh like they have a seven foot pole shoved up their ass. Is it not simpler to just say hi and fight. Or even better skip the dialogue and get right to the killing. Mortals and their overcomplicated ways of doing things."**

Naruto was shocked speechless, unless when he had lessons with Kurama they never spoke. And now he's talking. Most people have no idea what its like to have someone else's voice in your head. Its creepy, scary and in this situation amusing as hell. But maybe Kurama was right. Punch first ask questions later.

" momochi Zabuza of the hidden mist. Last I heard you are a fugitive from your empire and a member of a known and wanted mercenary organization. Also if my guess is not wrong that should be the prince of the yuki family haku. Now this is what you call interesting, every member and potential heir for the throne of the fire nation standing on an uncompleted bridge, in an uncomfortable situation which might end with unknown results."

Everybody was looking at Kakashi with deadpan expressions, naruto could hardly see the need for the guy to string his words with matching un, in everything he had to say, was he rapping or something.

" well enough talking, we have been offered a lot of resources to make sure this bridge does not get built and the akatsuki has every intention of using this island of wave as a new base. Your presence is not welcome here."

" well then, I guess there's no more need for idle chatter."

With his piece said Kakashi disappeared from his position behind naruto, to appear in the midst of their enemies. Naruto could not see what Kakashi did, but there was an explosion and he succeeded in separating haku from Zabuza. Then hinata spoke up.

" what are you guys waiting for, an invitation? Let's go."

And so they went after haku, and haku went after them while their teachers fought each other all over the bridge, steadily destroying it, piece by piece.

Haku dodged the flying kick thrown by the hyuga princess, as she scored over him, he grabbed her legs bringing her momentum to a screeching halt. He heard something pop as he flung her like a rag doll across the bridge. She would probably have a dislocated ankle when this is all over if she survives that is. He raised his leg dodging the leg sweep from Sasuke, he moved to the left dodging the discuss forearm naruto tried to implement, with his move missing naruto over extended and left the entirety of his right side open for haku to deliver a kick that probably cracked if not out right broke a few of naruto's ribs.

Sasuke was throwing some jabs like he was boxing, this was probably the only offensive taijutsu technique he knew, this was mediocre compared to the uchiha's intercepting fist. But it was not his fault, the intercepting fist while powerful was not a martial art to had any emphasis on preemptive strikes. It instead chooses to Intercept and enemies attempt to attack using their own moves and energy against them, it was so good that even if an enemy wants to defend they would find themselves on the receiving end of a beat down.

So all haku had to do was evade when fighting Sasuke. Ino came flying in with wicked looking curved daggers called a kukri. They were commonly found in a continent down south, and she could use it very well. The Yamanaka clan were ranged fighters and more often then not could control the outcome of a battle at the drop of a heart with their mind techniques. But until Ino gets to the jonin realm and learn to project her chakra outside her body, she's nothing but a little serpent with growing fangs. But regardless she was quite skilled with her daggers. To skilled in fact, she was using a skill haku had never seen before. She moved her daggers skillfully but every move was a feint or trick more so that haku did not know which one was going to hit him. Almost like an illusion, her blades a million different ways non hit but in seconds he finds himself bleeding from places he had no idea he could bleed from.

This fight was not going as he expected. One on one he would wipe the floor with this princes and princesses. But for some reason they all know how to work together and its fucking irritating.

Haku felt the punch before he even saw it. Though it was more like a slap but it still hurt like a bitch. Hinata seemed to be even more ferocious than Ino as she threw palm strikes after palm strikes at him. Haku could not defend very well, because while hinata was trying to turn his organs to paste Ino was trying to slice and dice him.

The palm strikes had a residual effect of messing with his chakra, haku knew he had to create some space or this bunch of amateurs will bring him down. Guess its time the gloves came off.

Haku circulated his chakra, he was almost at the peak of the genin realm, another two or four months and he would be in the jonin realm. Something that is a little to far for this kids to achieve yet.

And while their purpose here might have unexpectedly been waylaid by this group of people. It was only a matter of setting thing straight.

Naruto felt the air rapidly become colder. He was about to give out a warning before a blast of cold wind blew them all away from each other. Before naruto could make sense of anything, they were all trapped in a dome of crystal mirrors. To be honest it was really beautiful on the order hand haku's image was imprinted on every single one of those mirrors, it was eerily creepy, which the whole damn thing seem less beautiful in retrospect.

Naruto charged, while the others and by extension him would busy themselves trying to figure out the use of this prison of mirrors, nothing will happen if non of them take action, and naruto knew for a fact he was more resilient than all of them. So just for today he voluntarily becomes the meat shield of this team.

As soon as naruto got close to one of the gaps between the mirrors he was hit and thrown back so suddenly he was sure he heard a few ribs crack.

" please tell me you guys saw what hit me, and that I did not risk internal injury for nothing?"

They all looked at him with surprised gazes for a minute, probably quite surprised he would choose to use such a method to figure out what they were dealing with. And then Ino developed a somewhat melancholic look that did nothing but Sen eerie shivers down his spine.

" well whatever that was, it was moving way to fast, for us to see anything, so maybe if you tried on more time it might work."

Both Sasuke and Hinata were looking at Ino like she had grown another head on her shoulder, they both had the dojutsu's activated and were able to see what happened to certain extent. Ino had know them longer than naruto so she would know they saw it, the only thing happening here was that she was messing with naruto.

While naruto may now have a badass teacher, and was a whole lot smarter than he was, he was still naruto and quite honestly he was probably the most gullible person ever born to walk the face of the elemental nations. Before anybody could protest he got an spoke while running.

" okay you guys should keep an open eye, watch carefully so we can fig…uhhhhh."

And then he was sent flying again, harder than the first time. It might seem haku was trying to beat the stupidity out of him. The other three were shocked and struggling to keep from laughing. Ino felt a little remorseful or not. She was a girl who ordered the death of hundreds at the drop of a hand, tricking the future emperor to get his butt kicked will make for some killer story in the future.

Sasuke helped naruto up, while explaining to him.

" it's the haku guy that's hitting you, he is traveling so fast between the mirrors like its some sort of marker for teleporting, like your old man's flying thunder god. But much much slower. Hinata is able to pinpoint his exact location while I can see him move, but he is way to fast for us to react in time. So the best thing to do right now is destroy the mirrors so we can limit his movements.

Everyone set to work hitting and punching at the ice frozen mirrors that regenerated at the same pace it took to destroy them, making the whole endeavor useless. They regrouped back at the center completely out of ideas on how to deal with haku and his dome of mirrors.

And then it began raining needles, both Sasuke and naruto jumped around trying to evade the densely packed cluster of sharpened ice, it did not turn out as expected. All though the seven inch needles could not penetrate more than an inch into their skin, being poked full of holes was bound to get them in serious trouble. Ino and hinata fared a little better.

The Yamanaka princess used her strange shaped daggers to deflect all the needles heading for her face and chest, her legs on the other hand was a different story. Hinata did not have a single scratch on her, courtesy of her families defensive technique the kaiten, while its power can not be properly displayed until she gets to the jonin realm, her intense spinning enabled the chakra in her body to coat the interior of her skin and was able to make a thin layer of chakra over her body.

Naruto felt it wasn't fair, but to each his own.

They felt trapped and had no idea how to get out of this, so naruto decided to do something he knew how to do, at least it might buy them some time.

" Haku why are you doing this? This people are innocent and the fact that you are helping that gato guy is harming this village."

" excuse me, do we know each other?"

The silence was deafening, it was a very awkward atmosphere but for some reason naruto did not seem to be to troubled by the whole thing.

" right that was very funny haku, four days ago I met girl…er I mean a guy. Of course it was a guy that looked like a girl, but he was a guy mind you. A very beautiful guy I might add who looked and sounded like a girl. It was very strange, or may be he was a girl pretending to be a guy who was pretending to not be a girl but at the same time was really a girl who told she was a guy just to mess with me. Or she or he rather could truly be a guy that looked like a girl. It was all very strange."

Sasuke could not take it anymore. There could be something to be said about a royals ability to take shit from people. Contrary to belief their lives are not theirs as there are certain ways they expected to act, certain thing they are expected to do. But in the span of thirty seconds naruto had smashed and surpassed that threshold elevating Sasuke to a point where he could safely said 'he had never been more annoyed and irritated in his entire life.

" naruto will you shut your DAMN MOUTH! And get on with your FUCKING STORY! That mind you nobody CARES ABOUT!."

At least naruto had the decency to look embarrassed.

" yea sorry, like I was saying, I met a girl uh, I mean a guy called haku a few days ago, who gave so really dope advice. You told me the only way a person could truly be strong was if they had someone they wanted to protect, a precious person. But what are the odds that after my meeting I searched high and low, all over the entire village, and there was no body called haku there. And what are the odds that today someone with the same name, same voice, same hair and limp. Appear here. Do you know every time you walk you hesitate by at least half a second to put your left foot down. Hmmm, so you want to tell me again that we don't know each other. But haku my question remains why are you doing this?"

" I don't owe you any explanation Naruto."

" yes you are right about that, but don't you think the innocent people suffering because of your actions deserve an explanation too. You told me only by wanting to protect can someone truly be strong. Then why are you destroying."

For a moment there was silence, there was eerie stillness to the battlefield, even the sounds of Kakashi's and Zabuza fight had long since gone quiet. Though no can be sure of what that meant. The thought that their pseudo teacher for the past few days being dead was a scary thought.

" naruto you are no stranger to this world. It is ruled by the strong, and many years from now the strong will still reign supreme. And the strong make the rules naruto, it doesn't matter how you get your strength, either by protecting, by taking, by cheating, killing or as you say destroying. In the end it means if you are strong you are above morality, even your fellow teammates young as they are no strangers to this. They have made decisions with the power they were given and used it to suit their needs.

To the weak and powerless they would be called tyrants but to people of equal status such actions will be brushed aside as nothing more than something natural. If you are strong you only have to live by your own rules, you create and deal with the consequences of all your actions anyway you see fit. You can't protect everyone Naruto, and not everybody has good in their heart. For now you are still pure and innocent, but it is only a matter of time before you start making decisions that will destroy villages like this in seconds.

And then you would be as dark as the next person, and you will make this decisions for one reason only…to protect. To you it will be justified, but to your victims you would be nothing more than a beast. The world is not painted in black and white prince naruto, it is only all shades of grey. If you survive it is up to you to decide how your decisions affect you and the people around, it is up to you to decide if that action is worth taking or not, regardless of who would be protected and who would not.

As for the answer to your question this village stands in the way of people I want to protect, people who are important to me. It does not matter if their innocent or not, they just were to unfortunate to have become an obstacle in the path of my precious people."

Naruto did not know how to quantify his feelings at that moment. In the trues since of every word spoken, haku was right. And whether he liked it or not Naruto knew somewhere in his future there was a big bad galaxy of grey decisions and lifestyle waiting for him. He could not protect everybody, that true. But he would be damned if he does not try to protect as much people as his power would let him. He would never give up neither would he surrender to the status quo, everybody seems comfortable living in a world where their decisions have no consequences, but he would fight to change that. He might fail and get swallowed up in a storm that is bred by power drunk idiots and all manner of grey mannerisms. Everything has to have a consequence, he would make sure the world goes back to being black and white. Even if he has to be the only person who is grey, he would take it on upon himself to make sure everyone is made accountable, starting with haku.

Naruto said nothing more and took an attacking stance. Naruto knew there was nothing more to be said, he now knew what he wanted for his life and how he wanted to live it. He had no ice what road he could take to achieve his goals but he's going to start by beating the loving crap out of his new friend and throwing his ass in jail or her ass, which ever one gender this freak of nature in front of him was.

Naruto felt his chakra begin to circulate at a faster rate, it felt stronger, darker. Slowly wisps of red chakra tinged with the black energy of the chaos dimension slowly began to seed out of his body. Naruto was a jinchuriki and the ninth gate to the chaos the very cradle of creation. And one of the prerequisites of harnessing the power of both the tailed beast and the chaos dimension was conviction.

If a person is not sure of himself or he has no clear sight of what he wants the power of the celestial demons and the chaos realm would consume them until they become monsters that was neither human nor demon, just a mindless beast of chaos and destruction. Eventually the person would be called by the chaos itself and become imprisoned in endless blackness and void along with the millions of other chaos beast trapped there.

Naruto felt his perception grow sharp, he could pick out the individual feathers that made up the wings of a seagull flying almost a hundred meters up in the air. He felt the air on his skin, every slight shift every movement take like the caress of a mother. He could hear everything, from the ants that were desperately trying to get away from this battle, the fishes in the sea below and heartbeat of everyone around him. He could hear it for miles.

He noticed there were being watched by at least twenty different people, and among them he could smell jiraiya. He knew this was probably the bodyguards for Sasuke and the others ready to swoop in if anything went wrong. Naruto heard haku's breath hitch and his heartbeat accelerate. He was afraid that much was obvious or was it excitement, naruto couldn't tell. Naruto felt himself bleeding from the sensory overload. He felt blood pool out from his eyes, his ears, his nose even his skin, and with it came an agony almost unbearable if not for the fact it was ushered in riding on the waves of all encompassing rage.

He felt so angry, somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was under some sort of influence but he did not care. Not even when he knew this new wave of power was slowly tearing his body apart. The fact that haku could comfortably believe it was okay to walk all over the lives of weak people if it furthered your goals or helped you protect the people you love revolted him. If that was the price to be paid to protect the people you love then its not worth it. There was always another way, trampling over people as strong as him or stronger to protect your precious person was alright with him. But the weak who could not fight back…no, that will make him nothing but a tyrant.

He owed it to the weak and helpless to always find another way, another solution to all their problems. And if there is no way he would make one. Naruto felt he was born to achieve great things, he just had that feeling where he felt supremely confident about his future.

But it did not make him any less angry that a person he considered a friend could think this way about the lives of innocent people. He resolved to beat a new mindset into haku's head, and if that did not work…well he would send haku six feet under. People with such a mindset would without doubt become a problem in the future. Its better to get rid of such a sore now before it festers and become an ulcer in the future.

Naruto moved so fast to an average shinobi's he was nothing more than a blur.

Haku was not an average shinobi's, so he was able to bring his fore arm up to block the kick naruto sent at him. There was a bang as haku was forced a few feet back by the force of the kick his arm smarting as he was sure he might have bruised the bones on his arm. Naruto gave him no quarter as he moved into haku's personal space throwing random punches. It was quite obvious naruto was fighting angry, his hits had no rhythm or form only power.

While haku could comfortably dodge all this punches taking a hit would be stupid. Naruto might no longer be fighting smart but haku was sure one hit from those skinny arms of his would leave someone in the jonin realm in a very sorry state. Naruto threw a fast punch which haku evaded by moving his head to the left, but that was all a bait as another punch was coming for his head. Haku was more experienced than naruto in fights so he leaned back just a little letting the lethal punch miss by just a hairs breath. But naruto had disappeared, it seemed both punches were feints, haku felt naruto's hands encircle his waist and then the whole world turned upside down as naruto delivered a snap suplex, the impact from hitting the pure concrete dazed him long enough for naruto to put him in a triangle choke hold. Naruto had his legs wrapped around haku's throat, cutting of his air supply.

Haku was already seeing the black spots accompanied with unconsciousness, so he exerted himself lifting the smaller naruto and slamming him down hard on the concrete reciprocating naruto's earlier attack. It gave him the much needed breathing space he sought for as he observed naruto slowly get up from the floor.

Haku had to admit, the sight of naruto with the red and black chakra coming off him and evaporating into the air was very bone chilling, and his eyes, red as blood with a feline slit in it. Naruto looked like a personification of death from a horror story, it was taking all of his will power to not fall prey to the intense bloodlust coming off his body in droves.

Naruto on the other hand could finally think clearly, in this small moment of clarity naruto knew he had to end this fight quick all the intense pain he had chose to drive to the back of his mind would consume him. Naruto did not want to find out what would happen if holds on to this strange empowered state for too long.

Naruto's figure blurred once again, as he engaged haku, this time he utilized the full dance of the summer and all its mysteries he had been able to comprehend. Being as destructive as fire was the very essence of this fighting style. And this time naruto brought it out, his hits were precise and explosive. In no time at all both him and haku became nothing but a huge expanse of flying fists and bad intentions. Their three and only members of their audience watched in awe as naruto utilized skills and moved his body in such a way deemed impossible for men. Naruto was bringing the pain with extreme prejudice.

Haku matched naruto blow for blow, but the only thing he had going for him was an armor of ice covering his body and cushioning the blows naruto was raining down on him.

In a fight this high end a single mistake could cost you your life. And haku made such a rookie mistake, and this mistake gave naruto the opportunity to shove his elbow straight for haku's unprotected neck. Such a strike even with haku's armor he would not survive.

To anybody watching that fight it was quite obvious haku was dead, but naruto abandoned the move, and jumped back quickly. And not a moment to soon as a massive broadsword came slamming down on where he was a few moments ago.

Zabuza was standing in front of haku with a limp right arm and blood all over his body. Kakashi appeared right behind naruto not looking any different than when he first started fighting Zabuza. The only difference was his raised headband as it showcased the full power of his sharingan.

" well Zabuza we find yourself at an impasse it seems. So just lay down and die like the dog you are. Oops excuse me dogs are to good for you, lay down and let me squash you like the bug that you are."

What made this statement all the more chilling was the fact that Kakashi said it all with a cheery tone and smiling face.

" you will not be taking my life today Kakashi, and you young prince I shall be seeing very soon. You have no idea the storm that's coming for you. And let me guarantee you. You will not survive it just like your parents."

With his piece said Zabuza threw a smoke bomb and disappeared with haku the only evidence of their presence being the blood the left behind. Naruto had no idea what happened next as darkness once again enveloped him.

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE: guys this chapter is not exactly good. I have been in a hurry of sorts to end this wave arc and I feel the quality of the whole thing dropped by a lot. Overall am out of juice. I need ideas help me please. Anyway thanks for reading I will try my best to get the next chapter out as soon as I can. I just need to figure out the direction I want this stuff to go.**


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